Rock Crystal

ADALBERT STIFTER (1805–1868), the son of a provincial linen weaver and flax merchant, was born in the rural Bohemian market town of Oberplan, then part of the Austrian Empire but today in the Czech Republic. When Stifter was still a child, his father was crushed under an overturned cart; the family was left poor, but Stifter’s grandfather sent him to school at the the Benedictine Monastery of Kremsmunters and he proved a brilliant student. Stifter attended the University of Vienna, where he studied law but failed to obtain a degree. Instead he supported himself as a much sought-after tutor to the children of the high Viennese aristocracy while also acquiring a small reputation as a landscape painter. For a number of years Stifter eagerly courted the daughter of a rich businessman, but his lack of worldly position turned her family against him, and in 1835 he married Amelia Mohaupt, a milliner. In 1840, he published his first story, the success of which started him on a career as a writer, and in 1850, after working as an editor on two newspapers, he was appointed supervisor of elementary schools for Upper Austria. Stifter’s works include numerous stories and novellas, as well as Witiko, a historical novel, and Indian Summer, considered one of the finest examples of the German bildungsroman. Stifter’s mental and physical health deteriorated in his final years. In 1868, suffering from cirrhosis of the liver, he committed suicide.

W. H. AUDEN (1907–1973) was born in North Yorkshire, England, the son of a doctor. He studied at Oxford and published his first book, Poems, in 1930, immediately establishing himself as one of the outstanding voices of his generation. Auden emigrated to New York in 1939, where he became a United States citizen and converted to Anglicanism. He wrote essays, critical studies, plays, and opera librettos for such composers as Benjamin Britten, Igor Stravinsky, and Hans Werner Henze, as well as the poems for which he is most famous.

ROCK CRYSTAL

ADALBERT STIFTER

Translated by

ELIZABETH MAYER and
MARIANNE MOORE

Introduction by

W. H. AUDEN

NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS

New York

THIS IS A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOK

PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

www.nyrb.com

Translation copyright © 1945

Introduction copyright © 1945 by W.  H. Auden

All rights reserved.

First published by Pantheon Books Inc., 1945

W. H. Auden’s introduction is adapted from his review of this translation in The New York Times Book Review, November 18, 1945.

Cover image: Snow crystals captured by photomicroscope; © SnowCrystals.com

Cover design: Katy Homans

A previous edition of this title has been cataloged by the Library of Congress as follows:

Stifter, Adalbert, 1805–1868.

  [Bergkristall. English]

Rock crystal / Adalbert Stifter ; introduction by W. H. Auden ; translated by Elizabeth Mayer and Marianne Moore.

 p. cm. — (New York Review Books classics)

  Reprint of edition published: New York : Pantheon Books, 1945.

  ISBN 978-1-59017-285-8 (alk. paper)

  I. Title.

PT2525.B4E5 2008

833'.7—dc22

2008019248

ISBN: 978-1-68137-053-8

v1.0

For a complete list of titles, visit www.nyrb.com or write to:

Catalog Requests, NYRB, 435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

CONTENTS

Biographical Notes

Title Page

Copyright and More Information

Introduction

ROCK CRYSTAL

INTRODUCTION

ADALBERT Stifter is generally considered one of the great German stylists. The son of a linen weaver, Stifter was born in the Bohemian village of Oberplan in 1805, educated in a Benedictine monastery and at the University of Vienna and became an inspector of schools. All his life he suffered from fits of depression and anxiety; one of his adopted daughters died of typhus, the other, for no apparent reason, drowned herself in the Danube; in 1868, ill and discouraged by the public indifference to his two big novels, Nachsommer and Witiko, he cut his throat.

As might be expected from a man of his temperament, he loved tradition, order, childhood and the limpid serenity of the classical style. He never traveled without a volume of Goethe in his pocket and shared his master’s interest in natural history and geology; he was also a charming landscape painter. His prose may remind an English reader of W. H. Hudson.

The plot of Rock Crystal is simple enough. Two children walk from one mountain valley to visit their grandparents on Christmas Eve. On their way home it starts to snow; they miss the path and when night falls they are far out on a glacier.