Arthur Schnitzler – Critical Edition (Early Works) IV

The project Arthur Schnitzler – Critical Edition (Early Works) IV produces and (digitally) publishes a historical-critical edition of the early literary works of Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler (1862–1931). This edition expands on earlier FWF projects: Arthur Schnitzler – Critical Edition (Early Works) I (2010–2014), II (2014–2018), and III (2018–2021) (lead: em. Univ. Prof. Dr. Konstanze Fliedl). In addition to the print edition with Walter de Gruyter, a digital edition is being prepared at ACDH. The project aims to provide open access to Schnitzler’s manuscripts.

Arthur Schnitzler’s works represent a canonical part of modern Austrian literature. However, the standard reading editions published by Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag are very unreliable due to multiple improper corrections and editing processes. Despite this, a historical-critical edition of his works was only started in 2010. One of the reasons for the long lack of proper documentation of Schnitzler’s writing processes based on the manuscripts and different versions of the texts is the complicated estate situation. After the ‚Anschluss‘ in 1938, the estate was transferred to the Cambridge University Library for protection. The ‘private’ documents (diary, correspondence) were later given to the German Literature Archive/Marbach by Schnitzler’s son; most of the manuscripts are still in Cambridge; other parts of the estate are kept in Exeter, Geneva, Jerusalem, and other places. The fact that a scholarly edition of Schnitzler’s works remained a desideratum for so long is also due to his notoriously difficult-to-read handwriting, the decipherability of which is made even more difficult by the use of soft pencils as a writing instrument.

Unlike later works, Schnitzler’s early writings up to around 1904 have been handed down in manuscript form. Thus, each volume presents all preserved manuscripts of the respective edited text as facsimiles in original size, accompanied by a diplomatic transcription for which specific transcription guidelines have been developed. In addition, each volume contains a print text revised in accordance with the standards of edition philology, usually after the first print, and an apparatus of variants of all prints produced during Schnitzler’s lifetime. A preliminary note provides information on the text’s genesis and printing history; historical and cultural details, Austriacisms, and dialect expressions are explained in a commentary.

The following volumes have been published with de Gruyter to date:

• Der einsame Weg (2 volumes, 2024)
• Der Witwer. Die Gefährtin (2023)
• Paracelsus (2021)
• Der grüne Kakadu (2020)
• Reigen(2 volumes, 2019)
• Blumen (2018)
• Ein Ehrentag (2017)
• Ein Abschied (2016)
• Die Frau des Weisen (2016)
• Die Toten schweigen (2016)
• Frau Bertha Garlan (2015)
• Liebelei (2 volumes, 2014)
• Anatol (2 volumes, 2012)
• Sterben (2012)
• Lieutenant Gustl (2011)

Starting with the second project, all data was created following TEI guidelines to make it digitally accessible beyond the print versions and eBooks. In the course of the fourth project, the one-act play Die Gefährtin – together with the novella Der Witwer, on which it is based – has been edited to date; the historical-critical edition of the play Der einsame Weg is currently in print. This fourth project is also dedicated to the edition of eight novellas collected by Schnitzler in the volumes Die griechische Tänzerin (1905) and Dämmerseelen (1907). The early prose published in book form during Schnitzler’s lifetime will thus be completely edited.