Criticism about FPG & FrL
(Greve/Grove & Else von Freytag-Loringhoven)



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Felix Paul Greve's Translations, 1902-1909:
their reception in contemporary journals

A paper presented at the LCMND Conference, Grand Forks, October 1989
by Gaby Divay, University of Manitoba


Unlike many of his contemporary fellow-translators, Felix Paul Greve (1879-1948) would be entirely unknown today if it weren't for the discovery a professor of Canadian literature chanced upon in October1971. Searching for the uncertain origins of the well known Canadian pioneer novelist Frederick Philip Grove who appeared in Manitoba in 1912 and claimed to be of Swedish descent, Douglas Spettigue convincingly identified him with Felix Paul Greve who, staging a suicide, disappeared from Berlin in September 1909. The three years between his sudden eclipse from Germany and his well documented existence as a Canadian author are shrouded in darkness, but they are likely to have been spent in a hobo-like existence similar to that Grove describes in the  pseudo-biographical accounts A Search of America  (1927), where it lasts for two and a half years, and In Search of Myself (1946) where it lasts for an epically enlarged twenty years. I don't think it is too far-fetched to see Grove's model of autobiographical representation in Goethe's famous Dichtung und Wahrheit where fabulation and truth, fiction and facts are also deliberately entwined.

No documentary proof for Grove's and Greve's identity exists so far, but indirect evidence of a biographical and literary nature abounds:

When one compares Grove's depiction of his early life in the autobiographical novels with Greve's entry in Brümmer's Lexicon der deutschen Dichter und Prosaisten, for which Greve supplied the information in a letter dated March 6, 1907, it becomes obvious that the Brümmer account reads like a blueprint for Grove's self-representation:

- Grove adhered to the birth date February 14th, although he changes the birth year from 1879 to 1872, which makes him seven years older.
- to the birthplace, a nameless Russian-German border-town, is easily identified with Greve's birthplace Radomno, now in Poland;
- to his parents names which admittedly suffer from some effect of Verfremdung, since Bertha Reichentrog and Carl Eduard Greve become Bertha Rutherford and Carl Edward Grove;
- to his schooling at a Gymnasium in Hamburg which matches the Johanneum;
- to his higher education in classical philology in many European capitals, but also in Bonn and Munich;
- to his proficiency in languages, with the suspicious lack of his native Swedish;
- to his involvement with famous literary circles of Paris and Munich around 1890 which, of course, takes place for Greve around 1900 when he tried to be accepted in the exclusive Stefan George Circle. Gide he doesn't meet until 1904.

Grove makes prominent use of names with the initials FPG in his writings, The most striking example is a confessional novel with the tentative title Felix Powell's Career - (Powell, spelled P_O_W_E_L_L, being a homonym of Greve's second name P_A_U_L) - which was composed around 1940 and unfortunately is no longer extant since Grove's wife Catherine (Stobie, p.176), felt compelled to destroy it, presumably because of its daring and immoral content.

The best literary evidence of Grove's and Greve's identity are Grove's six German manuscript poems in the University of Manitoba Archives. All of them are both in theme and technique reminiscent of the output by the George-Circle, and of a collection of poetry entitled Wanderungen which Greve published privately in 1902. One of these German Grove-poems, untitled in the Canadian manuscript, had been published by Greve in the German literary journal Die Schaubühne as "Erster Sturm" in 1907.

Grove's largely unpublished English poetry can be described as realistic, and does not share any of the decadent characteristics which clearly dominate his German manuscript poems. An interesting change takes place in the English translation Grove provides for two of these. Using an almost literal translation, he achieves a subtle and very artful shift from neo-romantic to realistic poetry. "Erster Sturm" becomes "The Dying Year", and the dramatic element of Fall's arrival is toned down considerably. In "Arctic Woods", an apocalyptic white horse symbolizing death in the German version is replaced with the powerful evocation of a murderous winter landscape.

A similar shift away from the ideals of decadence towards more realistic standards is documented for Greve in André Gide's notes about their first personal encounter in June 1904. Greve declares that he cannot identify any longer with the ideal of art which he still championed in his studies on Oscar Wilde two years earlier. With reference to his financial situation he states: "C'est le besoin qui maintenant me fait écrire. L'oeuvre d'art n'est pour moi qu'un pis-aller. Je préfère la vie." - "I write because of necessity now. Art is nothing but a way out for me, I prefer life."

 One likely reason for a significant change in values and attitudes at that time can be found in Greve's sketchy biography. Late in 1902, he elopes with the wife of the renowned architect August Endell whom Greve in a letter of November 19th calls his friend (Pacey, 522). When Greve returns from Palermo in May1903, he is arrested for fraud and sentenced to one year in prison. Two contemporary newspaper accounts dwell on his and Else Endell's extravagant lifestyle with borrowed money. Greve's frantic translation activities from then on are motivated by the heavy and constant obligation to repay enormous sums, a burden which likely decided him five years later to disappear and start a new life in America. The two lengthy novels Greve published in 1905 and 1907 seem to be fictional biographies based on Else's life, and the first is considered a roman à clef in Markus Behmer's correspondence. Behmer was a then well known illustrator of the Insel publishers.

The range and quantity of Greve's translations are truly amazing, particularly for a span of only seven years: Lesage's Gil Blas, Dumas' Count of Monte Christo, Murger's La Bohème, a fair amount of Balzac, Flaubert and Gide, along with Cervantes' Novellas and Don Quichote, and possibly parts of Dante's Vita Nuova from the Romance languages; most decadent English authors and their precursors like Browning, De Quincey, Dowson, Meredith, Pater, Swinburne, Whistler, and Oscar Wilde from the English, not to mention much of H.G. Wells, the anonymous Letters of Junius, Dicken's David Copperfield, Swift's satirical prose works, and all sixteen volumes of Sir Richard Burton's version of the Arabian Nights (10 & 6  v. 1885-88; Insel, 1907-8, 12v.). Quite a few of these can still be found in German imprint-tools today.

Already in August1902, in his initial letter to the publishing house Die Insel, Greve claims to have translated "the major works of Oscar Wilde" as well as several related English authors. Of these, he offers Dowson's Dilemmas as the first ready for publication.

Two years later, he tells André Gide that during his stay in prison he has not only translated two of Gide's works, but also "all of Flaubert's correspondence, Bouvard et Pécuchet, all of Wells, four volumes of Meredith, three of de Quincey". Greves claims seem boastful and are somewhat inflated, but his subsequent publication record justifies them to a large extent. Many, if not all of the titles he mentions eventually appear in print, and some may simply not have been found yet.

The coverage of Greve's translations in contemporary literary journals is difficult to document. For a comprehensive survey, many more months or even years of diligent and systematic searching would be required, and they certainly would be rewarded with relevant findings. Unfortunately, many journals are difficult to locate, and of the ones found, few provide an adequate index. Some have none at all, like the weekly Magazin für Literatur. Even if a journal features a good index, as for instance Das Litterarische Echo or Die Grenzboten, the search is time consuming to say the least. Since hardly anything except for an occasional self-review can be found under Greve's name, each of the 23 authors Greve is known to have translated and some others he might have translated need to be searched.

To complicate matters, Greve started using pseudonyms while in prison. Only two of them, Friedrich Carl Gerden and Konrad Thorer are known with certainty, but Greve may well have adopted others. Spettigue suspects the Wilde-translator Eduard Thorn to be Greve even though it is easy to prove that Thorn obtained a doctoral degree in 1913, and still published in the early fifties. Spettigue and Pacey wonder if the Freiherr von Teschenberg, one of the earliest to translate Wilde, might not also be Greve, and both critics are inclined to see a possible pseudonym in Felix Poppenberg who often signs surveys about the French literary scene with his initials long after Greve has left. While none of the above stand up to closer scrutiny, there are other less clear-cut possibilities. I try hard to avoid the danger of seeing Greves everywhere, but sometimes I cannot resist the temptation either, and I have my own little list of highly speculative Greve-pseudonyms which - when pursued - will probably dissolve into nothingness.

So far, I have investigated ten literary periodicals, and I have a collection of some sixty references to either Greve's translations themselves, or to related ones. Thirteen authors or titles Greve is known to have translated are covered by these somewhat unevenly.

Sometimes, there is a sample chapter which fails to identify the translator as Greve, as for instance Whistler's "Ten o'clock tea" in Die Neue Rundschau of1903. Sometimes a promising lead proves to be translated by somebody else. If a pre-print is unsigned, additional information stemming usually from Greve's correspondence or a Bruns publishers catalogue, help to pinpoint Greve as the translator.

Some of the references I use have already been pointed out by Spettigue or Pacey, the editor of Grove's and some of Greve's correspondence, but many of them are my findings. I shall now discuss the admittedly incomplete material I have in roughly chronological order.

The earliest evidence illustrating Greve's translations heavily concentrate on Oscar Wilde. Of the fifteen accounts I am aware of for the period from 1902 to 1904, ten address this author's sudden popularity in Germany. From then on, there are only passing remarks or reminiscences.

Max Meyerfeld, a self-proclaimed specialist of contemporary English literature and a Wilde-translator himself, writes several accounts on Oscar Wilde for the leading literary journal Das litterarische Echo. Rightfully feared for his acerbity, he complains in late 1902 (LE V, 458 ff) about the lack of attention paid to Wilde in Germany up to then. But now, he reports, "the German translators have latched on to him with a vengeance. During the last few months, almost all his works have been brought out in German". He mentions Greve among others like Gaulke, Pavia, and von Teschenberg.

Also, Salome and Bunbury (The Importance of Being Earnest) have just been successfully staged at the Kleine Theater in Berlin, under the direction of Max Reinhardt. Salome is Lachmann's acclaimed translation  - even Meyerfeld considers it excellent. It is still important today because of Richard Strauss' musical adaptation. Bunbury, or The Importance of being earnest, is Greve's effort.

A theatre critic in his report of the 1902 fall season for the Neue Deutsche Rundschau also addresses the Wilde-performances which must have been particularly impressive, since even four years later another critic nostalgically refers to these Reinhardt productions in Die Schaubühne. In early 1904, the editor of the Neue Rundschau considers the recent staging of Eine Frau ohne Bedeutung (A Woman without Importance) "eine Scheußlichkeit", or an abomination.

In a letter to the George-disciple Gundolf in September 1902, Greve signals that the Kleine Theater in Berlin would start staging no less than four of Wilde's plays in his translation. Evidently, only  Bunbury and  Eine Frau ohne Bedeutung were produced and published either around that time by Bruns, or later in a ten volume Wilde-edition by the Wiener-Verlag (1906-8) along with a fairly substantial critical study by Greve called Oscar Wilde und das Drama (95p.).

 Bruns published, also in 1902, Greve's translation of Wilde's Intentions as Fingerzeige (268?p.), and in 1903 The Picture of Dorian Gray as Greve's Dorian Gray's Bildnis. The Insel published A House of Pomegranates as Das Granatapfelhaus. A sample translation of each is printed in the Neue Rundschau, where Oskar Bie also reviews Fingerzeige. He makes no judgement on the merits of the translation, but concentrates on the contents of the essays.

In a self-review in Die Zukunft, Greve justifies his translation of Dorian Gray with the poor quality of Gaulke's. Meyerfeld, reviewing eight Wilde-titles in the Litterarische Echo of 1903(LE VI, 1903, 541ff.) five of which are translated by Greve, agrees with him that Gaulke's effort (which he calls a "record in ignorance of the English and an abuse of the German language") had to be replaced with a better one. He compliments Greve on the fluidity of his German style, but then severely attacks several flaws which he cites and ridicules. Finally he questions not only Greve's knowledge of English, but also his ability to use a dictionary. Yet he considers Greve not one of the worst in the scandalously poor German translation industry.

A year later, in early 1905 (LE VII, 985ff), Meyerfeld comments again and for the last time on ten recent publications by and about Wilde. This time, three of Greve's efforts are addressed and judged inadequate except for the quality of his German. To balance Meyerfeld's negative opinions it may be pointed out that the famous and extremely critical Karl Kraus in his journal Die Fackel pays Greve a rare compliment for his "treffliche Verdeutschung", or wonderful translation of Dorian Gray in 1904.

Meredith is addressed in six accounts between 1903 to 1907. Next to Wells and Flaubert, he receives most of the critical attention. In 1900, Käthe Freiligrath reports from London, that Meredith is just then considered quite important in England, but has never been translated into German (LE1). Three years later, Karl Federn devotes a sympathetic article to Meredith and Swinburne, still without mentioning any translations. Then in 1904, Richard Feverel (orig. 1859) is published simultaneously by Fischer in Julie von Sotteck's, and by Bruns in Greve's translation. Frieda von Bülow, a close friend of Lou Andreas-Salome, reviews both of them in the Litterarische Echo. She acknowledges that Meredith is difficult to translate, but demonstrates with some examples that von Sotteck's attempt is more successful than Greve's. However, while she judges Greve's translation to be clumsy (ungeschickt), she grants him the advantage of a faithful and literal approach which in last analysis she considers more important than an elegant but sloppy adaptation.

Marie Fuhrmann only reviews Greve's contribution in the Preussischen Jahrbücher of 1904, and she has little flattery to spare. Using several salient examples, she concludes that Greve shouldn't attempt to translate at all, since his knowledge of English and his sensitivity to German are equally deficient. Nevertheless, Greve's translations of Harry Richmond's Adventures (1870) appear in print the very same year, and Diana of the Crossways (1885) the next. No critical account has been found for the former so far. For the latter, Marie Fuhrmann (PrJb 120) again reflects on how difficult it must have been to translate, and how unlikely it is that either the original text or the translation will find admirers; even Greve's comparison with Jean Paul's style would not make any difference, since nobody who is not forced to for professional reasons would care to read this German author either.

A Bruns catalogue written in the late 1920ies acknowledges Greve's role in publishing several of Meredith's novels. Apparently, Greve pursued one of Wilde's pointers in the Intentions, and originally proposed to translate Beauchamp's Career (1875; KLL, Bs Laufbahn, when?) which was however rejected. Note the parallel with the title of Grove's aborted autobiographical work Felix Powell's Career!

The only two references to Browning consist of a short sample of Kleon in Die Freistatt, and a lengthy preprint in two parts of Browning's & Barrett's letters in Die Neue Deutsche Rundschau, both in 1904.

No translator is listed for either of these, but the letters were published the next year by S. Fischer in Greve's translation. The Gerden pseudonym was used here, as it was for three other Browning translations all published by the Insel: Paracelsus, On a Balcony & In a Gondola, and A Blot in the Scutcheon. In a note to the Insel publishers dated May 12th, 1903, Greve announces proudly that "parts of (the letters) will appear shortly in the NDR", which, as we have seen, they were. Pacey  admits in an annotation to his 1976 edition of Grove's and Greve's correspondence that he has not been able to find these letters (p.526); they must have been hard to miss since there are 60 p. of them!.

Browning appears to receive a minimal amount of attention from the German critics, in spite of Greve's efforts to propagate him with text samples. Compared to Wilde, Meredith, and Wells there are also notably few rival translations.

After 1905, the Wilde-wave seems to have subsided. Gide and Wells emerge now, but also the first volumes of the large Flaubert and Balzac editions and of the Arabian nights are covered somewhat unevenly by the 22 references gathered for the years 1905-1908. All of these translations continue to be addressed during the next two years. Around 1908, Pater's Marius finally appears in print, and then the Cervantes and Swift editions are reflected in some accounts.

The critical reception of Gide in Germany is minor and disappointing in comparison to Wilde's and  Wells'. There are also relatively few translators rivaling with Greve for Gide's works, but some of them, like Franz Blei and Rainer Maria Rilke, are of major importance.

Gide's Immoraliste (1902) and Paludes (1895) as Die Sümpfe  were translated 1903 in prison, and published by Bruns in 1905.

Only two reviews of Der Immoralist and none of Paludes have been found. Marie Fuhrmann in the Preußische Jahrbücher objects to the flood of translations on the German market generally, and particularly when the imports are of questionable aesthetic and moral value. That Gide was a friend of Wilde, that he is compared to Nietzsche on Greve's advertisement blurb is hardly a recommendation for the reviewer, in whose opinion L'immoraliste never should have seen the day of light, and especially not in German. Julie Speyer' review in the Neue Rundschau (17, 1906, 637ff.) is more sympathetic; the critic concentrates on work-immanent aspects, and has no remarks on Greve's translation.

Gide's Nourritures terrestre (1897) Greve declares ready for publication in a letter to Franz Blei in 1905. But none of the German translations with titles like Uns nährt die Erde or Früchte der Erde - the latter ironically  or significantly coinciding with the title Grove chose for his novel, Fruits of the Earth in 1933 - can be identified as Greve's. Greve continued translating works Gide's works until he left. One of his last extant letters in June 1908 is addressed to Gide. Greve informs him that Saul (orig.1903) will be in print shortly, and he expects a stage-production during the winter season of 1908. There is also an enigmatic statement which indicates that Greve already has plans to exit from his present existence: "Ça court sa routine. Mais il y aura une grande lacune dans quelques mois" - "Things go on in their usual way. But there will be a great gap in a few months."

A pre-print of Saul with a short critical introduction by Greve appears in Die Schaubühne of 1907, while the Reiss publishers' imprint is dated 1909. The same year Greve's translation of La porte étroite (orig. in NRF) appeared as Die enge Pforte (Reiss), only half a year after the original was serially published in La Nouvelle Revue Française (2.-4. 1909). It was one of Greve's last German ventures. It even seems that the translation was incomplete, since a review by Moritz Heimann in Die Neue Rundschau (20,1909, 1370ff.) notes that the final chapter of the original is lacking in the German version. The qualities of Greve's translation are not addressed, but the novel is considered "artless", and the author is accused of "modern skepticism".

No less than six of Greve's Wells-translations were published in 1904 and 1905 by Bruns. Many of them are authorized by Wells, and the Wells Collection at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign owns autographed presentation copies of almost all these translations. There must have been some correspondence between Wells and Greve, but it appears not to have been retrieved, since no account of it has been made public so far.

Wells (1866-1946) is also of particular interest because many of his social and technological concerns are similar to those Grove reflects upon in his Canadian years.

Apart from a self-review of the Anticipations in Die Zukunft of 1905 where Greve compares Wells' stories to Jules Verne's science-fiction and Swift satires, and an unsigned short story in the same journal in 1906, there is a summary of an article about Wells the in Literarische Echo in1907 .It points to an account in Die neue Gesellschaft (H.17,Bd.5), a journal I have not had opportunity to see yet. Jules Verne and Swift are mentioned again, and while no discussion of the translations is indicated, many of Greve's titles are used in the summary.

In 1909, there is another short story by Wells in Der Morgen, and this time Greve signs as the translator. In the same year, there are also three reviews of The War in the Air which was originally published in 1908, and then in Germany both in English, by Tauchnitz in Leipzig, and in German by J. Hoffmann in Stuttgart. Neither Greve nor anybody else is mentioned as translator, but Greve's review of Der Luftkrieg sounds suspiciously like a sales-pitch when he concludes that "the book simply lacks 50.000 readers".

Bodo Wildberg in the Literarische Echo criticizes the novel's dark outlook on the consequences of technological discoveries, and notes that the German version seems mercifully shortened. An anonymous reviewer in Die Grenzboten calls Wells an accomplished writer with a powerful imagination and fascinating plots. Another anonymous article of considerable length (13p.) in the same journal deals with Wells in general. The author is less appreciative in his description of Wells' socialist leanings, and his political and social reform proposals. He reproaches Wells for the naturalistic breadth of his writings, and concludes that Wells' fame will dissipate as quickly as it has materialized.

The earliest indications that Greve turns to more traditional literatures are in a letter (14.6.'03) to the Insel publishers from his prison residence in 1903. He states that he feels a great desire to translate Flaubert's Contes, adds in as an afterthought: "Sollte man nicht einmal Balzac übersetzen?" (Wouldn't it be indicated to translate Balzac?). Both authors, according to a note in the Litterarische Echo (LE10,'08, 1547), were little known in Germany at that time. The massive editions of Flaubert, by Fischer, and of Balzac by the Insel began in 1907 and 1908 respectively, and Greve's involvement in them is considerable. His Flaubert translations all had previously appeared with Bruns' imprint, some of them as early as 1904. On Balzac's Splendeurs et misère des courtisanes and various novelettes he seems to be working mainly around 1908.

 Marie Fuhrmann is quick to object, in 1905, that Greve's version of Flaubert's La tentation de Saint Antoine was totally unnecessary on the grounds that no new translation was required and that nobody would read it anyway (PrJB). The Letters are mentioned in 1906 by one Hans Kyser, and in 1907 Oskar Bie reports approvingly in the Neue Rundschau that already two anthologies of these are available in German, one of them in Greve's translation. In 1908, Richard Schaukal in the Literarische Echo considers the flood of Flaubert's letters and Balzac novels tasteless, and holds greedy publishers responsible for this overproduction.

Further outspoken criticism about these editions soon abounds, and rather uncharitable comments about the quality of the translations include and even concentrate on Greve's contributions. The Viennese critics Franz Servaes and Rene Schickele, both in the Literarische Echo of 1909, quibble about titles and word choices, and refer condescendingly to Greve's immense output, implying that someone that fast cannot possibly be good. Harry Kahn, in the same volume (LE XI, 1330ff), calls Greve even "a notorious Speed- and Mass-translator" (there is a connotation with mass-murderer!) who deforms great French writers and particularly Balzac with his sloppy German translations. He suggests that one should add up the pages of Greve's output in a given year, and divide them by the the number of days; this arithmetic exercise would result in some amazing statistics. The title of Kahn's rather polemic contribution is "Gefährliche Übersetzer", or Dangerous translators.

Greve's translation of the Arabian Nights from Burton's English edition in sixteen volumes for the Insel publishers and adorned with an introduction by Hugo von Hofmannsthal meets with more critical success. The first  volumes appear in 1907, and receive immediate attention. Leo Berg in the Literarische Echo, W. Fred in the Neue Rundschau and someone with the initials J.R.H. in the Grenzboten all welcome the effort, and perhaps because they are preoccupied with the complicated publication history of the text, they find kind words for the editor and translator.

Also August Krause in early 1910 considers the translation excellent. Adjacent to Krause's review, R. Neumann reflects on the first two volumes of a collection of Oriental tales entitled Thousand and one Days. Those were published by the Insel in 1909, edited by Paul Ernst, and translated by Greve. Volumes three and four appeared later in 1910 in Hausmann's translation. Neumann makes positive remarks on the simple and elegant binding, but has rather harsh criticisms of Greve's translation. Greve had already left at the time, but Paul Ernst find it necessary to defend him in the next issue of the Literarische Echo where he in turn savagely attacks the reviewer's style.

The substantial Cervantes translations are published by the Insel in 1907 and 1908, and the Konrad Thorer pseudonym is used. Wolfgang von Wurzbach reviews the Novellas, and congratulates the publishers on the courage to undertake a new edition, but he reproaches "the new translator" of plagiarizing an older version without acknowledgement. Thassilo von Scheffer comments on the attractive appearance of the two Don Quichote volumes, and underlines the importance of an unshortened edition.

Swifts prose works in four volumes started to be published by Oesterheld in early 1909. Greve is acknowledged as editor, translator and commentator. Gustav Landauer reviews the first volume in the Literarische Echo, and finds the translation pleasant to read.

 In 1908, Walter Pater's Marius the Epikurean, which according to Greve's correspondence with the Insel was already completed in early 1903 when he returned from his escapade in Palermo, is finally published and extracts half a compliment for the courageous translator from Max Meyerfeld in a review in the Literarische Echo. In his opinion, however, that Greve has aa tendency to translate too literally.

A very thorough analysis of the text is provided by Carl Jentsch in the Grenzboten. He concentrates entirely on the philosophical content, but at one point he commends the translator for his elegant solution of a very difficult task. He fully agrees with a favorable review in the scholarly journal Anglia (which I have not seen), and defends Greve against some accusations voiced elsewhere, possibly in Meyerfelds review, to have produced a "slavish copy" of Pater's work.

For the translation of Lesage's Gil Blas in 1908, for which Greve used the Thorer-pseudonym, no critical account has been found so far. Also Murger's La Bohème is only flagged in one of Greve's self-reviews in die Zukunft of 1907. The lack of visibility for Dickens' David Copperfield and De Quincey's Murder considered as one of the fine arts (1827) can be explained easily enough with their, so to speak, posthumous publication in 1911 and 1913 respectively. More amazing is that Dowson's Dilemmas and Browning's Paracelsus are not covered. They were published as early as 1903 and 1904, and Greve states in a letter to the Insel publishers already in October 1903 that he has arranged for review "in a few places, the Magazin, etc." Apparently, this journal and Greve's advertisement politics caused the publisher considerable displeasure, and it is therefore possible that those reviews were aborted. But then it is just as possible that they, as many others, are still waiting to be discovered.

In conclusion, it is obvious that Greve in collaboration with the Bruns and Insel publishers must be credited with introducing the works of Browning, Dowson, Meredith, Pater, and Wells to the German public in a timely manner. He has been equally instrumental in making Gide, Flaubert and Balzac available , and in kindling the interest in many older works, particularly the Arabian Nights, Cervantes, Lesage and Swift. And it is also likely that Grove's impressive literary knowledge has its foundation in Greve's translation experience.

When Grove feels compelled in 1926 to disclaim an allegation in the  Canadian Bookman that he published the first continental edition of Gullivers Travels, he must have worried about being identified with Greve, since the first volume of the Prosaschriften is entitled Gullivers Reisen. But occasionally Grove seems inclined to give pointers to his previous existence, for instance when he says in "A writer's classification of writers and their work" (UTQ 1, 1932): "There are writers who are in love with art and yet are not...artists. Let me mention Lesage, or Walter Pater, or Gustave Flaubert. In their productions, these are inevitably stylists. They scrupulously avoid the trite...; they will never fall to the level of the mediocre; but neither will they attain the heights."
Who could know better about these authors than Greve?



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