BATTLE AND BETRAYAL
SCHILLER, Friedrich.
Wallenstein ein dramatisches Gedicht …
Tübingen, J. G. Cotta, 1800.
Two parts in one volume, 8vo, pp. [2], 238, [2], 250; light dampstaining to first quire, a few small marks; otherwise a very good copy in contemporary half sheep richly decorated in gilt, edges stained green, green morocco lettering pieces; with the gilt stamp of the Bibliotheca Carlowitziana on front cover and the initials C. v. C on small green lettering piece at foot of spine.
First edition of Schiller’s dramatic Wallenstein trilogy, tracing the rise and fall of the Bohemian general Albrecht von Wallenstein during the Thirty Years’ War, from the von Carlowitz library and perhaps associated with the play’s French translator, Baroness Aloïse-Christine de Carlowitz.
Part I comprises the one-act prelude Wallensteins Lager and the five-act Die Piccolomini, and part II comprises Wallensteins Tod. Written in the aftermath of the French Revolution and set in the Bohemian cities of Pilsen and Eger, the three parts premiered separately at the Weimar Theatre in 1798–9. Schiller’s Wallentein – who ultimately rebels against Emperor Ferdinand II in secretly negotiating with the Swedish enemy – is ‘still unscrupulous and a victim of his own overweening ambition, but invested nevertheless with more admirable human qualities, such as generosity, always towering above his contemporaries as a figure in history’ (Paulin, Wallenstein (2017), p. 5).
Provenance:
Bound for Carl Adolf von Carlowitz (1771–1837), general and friend of Novalis and Kleist, with his gilt armorial ‘Ex Bibliotheca Carlowitziana’ block to front board and initials ‘C. v. C.’ to spine. This copy was perhaps associated with the writer and translator Baroness Aloïse-Christine de Carlowitz (1797–1863), best known for her 1841 translation of Wallenstein into French (Histoire de la Guerre de Trente Ans), which was held in high esteem by the Academie Francaise (see Vicaire VII, col. 421).
Goedeke V, 212, 1; Graesse VI, p. 304.
