I don't think I am, I found a German translation that's being sold by a tiny publisher from Bayreuth (and has an atrocious cover) for about 15 Euros. Didn't necessarily look like something I'd cite for a paper. I didn't get it, so I don't know if it's abridged in any way either... My usual book finding sites don't have it at all right now. I don't think the auction house's sites for book auction records had it either, I remember looking for Mine's works there... I wish my internship wasn't over, maybe I could find something about different editions with their ressources
Original is best, obviously. I just found this one by chance. here Like I said, it's a super tiny publishing house and the cover is an affront to good taste. Also it only has 104 pages which seems odd considering the version in three parts...? I'm really not sure what this is. I actually don't remember how i found it either :'D
Thank you! I've used the contact form on their site to ask if they accept any forms of payment from the US. If so, I will send it to the royal reader and she can let us know if there's anything interesting. And I've uploaded the scan of the original French in two parts to the memoirs + diaries and the correspondence sections of the Frederician library.
104 pages sounds about right, actually; the three volumes include 2 unrelated volumes and only the third is Wilhelmine. Which is why I really, really didn't want to pay $500 for two books I didn't want and one I did. The Wilhelmine diary is only about 50 pages long, plus there are about 100 pages of letters between her and Fritz. I'm guessing the German translation doesn't include the letters, although there is a lot of blank space in the original volume, so the German publishers might have condensed the 168 pages down to 104.
If the German translation doesn't include the letters, selenak and/or felis can take a look at the original letters in French and see whether they look like letters we already have in other places (Trier, Volz, the Italy trip website etc.) or if they're new to us. If they're new to us, I'll work on getting them translated into English. But for now I'm holding off on all OCR cleanup until someone has a copy of the German translation of the diary.
Confirmed: the German translation of the diary is *only* the diary, and doesn't include the correspondence that the French volume has. (I went ahead and splurged on a copy that would ship to me from within the US, so it arrived yesterday, instead of 2 months from now. Have now spent a total of $200 on her diary. :P)
I will get the diary digitized asap, and at some point I or someone else can look into whether the letters are ones we already have access to or not. (The editor says they hadn't been published yet in 1891, so they're not in Preuss. But major candidates still include Volz and the Italy trip website.)
I do suspect the letters are at the Italy Trip Website, which after all wants to document Wilhelmine‘s Italian (and French) journey as detailed as possible, but what mystifies me is why they didn‘t put the diary up while they were at it - presumably copyright again, like with Lehndorff‘s diary (first volume) cunningly republished just when the copyright for Schmidt-Lötzen‘s translation runs out.
Anyway, I very much look forward to reading the Italian diary!
I was reading Blanning, and I ran into this observation on European visitors in Italy on their Grand Tours:
They came equipped with a yardstick against which contemporary conditions were almost certain to be found wanting, namely a classical education. Most famously, the contrast between the classical past and the Christian present inspired one of the greatest historiographical and literary creations of the eighteenth century, as Edward Gibbon recorded in his Memoirs: 'It was at Rome, on the 15th of October 1764, as I sat musing amid the ruins of the capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter [the Church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli], that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.'
I knew that it was a trope to go to Italy and complain, (I think selenak said women were more likely to accept current-day Italy on its own terms?), but this instance particularly struck me, since I've read (and liked) The Decline and Fall, and I didn't konw that this was how he got his inspiration.
I thinkselenaksaid women were more likely to accept current-day Italy on its own terms?
Yes, after reading the Anna Amalia biography, because that's something she, Wilhelmine and Fanny Mendelssohn - travellling at very different points from each other - have in common. Whereas, Goethe excepted (who loved it there), you're far more prone in male visitors to get to that passage where they complain about how low Italy has sunk since the Roman days. Mind you, after having read what Gian Gastone's Dad did to Florence during his 53 years bigotted reign, I would empathize for Florentine visitors during that era, but not looking back to Rome, looking back to the Renaissance!
I've now done a comparison of the first few letters, and I've found that there's very little overlap between what's in the Italy Trip Website and what's in the volume I procured. The website definitely uses the diary + letters volume as a source, but:
1. Most of the letters in the volume aren't in the diary and vice versa. This makes sense, since the letters in the volume start from January 1756, and Wilhelmine was back in Bayreuth starting in August 1755. Burrell, the editor, seems to be very interested in Wilhelmine's advice to Fritz on the war. 2. The letters that are on the website are heavily excerpted with ellipses. 2a. If you're up to 18th century handwriting and French, the facsimile of the few letters that are on the website is the whole thing, but the transcription + German translation is a fraction of the whole. 3. The readings of the letters that are in both website and book aren't always the same, according to the website.
So it seems there *is* some value in the manual labor of doing the OCR cleanup so these can be put through Google translate, unless they're in Volz or Solange wir zu zweit sind (which I don't own).
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Re: A mixture of stuff, mostly Katte related
Re: A mixture of stuff, mostly Katte related
And lol, I was a bit surprised at your apparent willingness to spend $150 or more on her diary. ;)
Re: A mixture of stuff, mostly Katte related
here
Like I said, it's a super tiny publishing house and the cover is an affront to good taste. Also it only has 104 pages which seems odd considering the version in three parts...? I'm really not sure what this is. I actually don't remember how i found it either :'D
Wilhelmine travel diary + Italy letters
104 pages sounds about right, actually; the three volumes include 2 unrelated volumes and only the third is Wilhelmine. Which is why I really, really didn't want to pay $500 for two books I didn't want and one I did. The Wilhelmine diary is only about 50 pages long, plus there are about 100 pages of letters between her and Fritz. I'm guessing the German translation doesn't include the letters, although there is a lot of blank space in the original volume, so the German publishers might have condensed the 168 pages down to 104.
If the German translation doesn't include the letters,
Re: Wilhelmine travel diary + Italy letters
I will get the diary digitized asap, and at some point I or someone else can look into whether the letters are ones we already have access to or not. (The editor says they hadn't been published yet in 1891, so they're not in Preuss. But major candidates still include Volz and the Italy trip website.)
Re: Wilhelmine travel diary + Italy letters
Anyway, I very much look forward to reading the Italian diary!
Re: Wilhelmine travel diary + Italy letters
They came equipped with a yardstick against which contemporary conditions were almost certain to be found wanting, namely a classical education. Most famously, the contrast between the classical past and the Christian present inspired one of the greatest historiographical and literary creations of the eighteenth century, as Edward Gibbon recorded in his Memoirs: 'It was at Rome, on the 15th of October 1764, as I sat musing amid the ruins of the capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter [the Church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli], that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.'
I knew that it was a trope to go to Italy and complain, (I think
Re: Wilhelmine travel diary + Italy letters
Yes, after reading the Anna Amalia biography, because that's something she, Wilhelmine and Fanny Mendelssohn - travellling at very different points from each other - have in common. Whereas, Goethe excepted (who loved it there), you're far more prone in male visitors to get to that passage where they complain about how low Italy has sunk since the Roman days. Mind you, after having read what Gian Gastone's Dad did to Florence during his 53 years bigotted reign, I would empathize for Florentine visitors during that era, but not looking back to Rome, looking back to the Renaissance!
Re: Wilhelmine travel diary + Italy letters
1. Most of the letters in the volume aren't in the diary and vice versa. This makes sense, since the letters in the volume start from January 1756, and Wilhelmine was back in Bayreuth starting in August 1755. Burrell, the editor, seems to be very interested in Wilhelmine's advice to Fritz on the war.
2. The letters that are on the website are heavily excerpted with ellipses.
2a. If you're up to 18th century handwriting and French, the facsimile of the few letters that are on the website is the whole thing, but the transcription + German translation is a fraction of the whole.
3. The readings of the letters that are in both website and book aren't always the same, according to the website.
So it seems there *is* some value in the manual labor of doing the OCR cleanup so these can be put through Google translate, unless they're in Volz or Solange wir zu zweit sind (which I don't own).