The Golem (European Classics) - Softcover

Gustav Meyrink

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1873982917 ISBN 13: 9781873982914

Publisher: Dedalus Ltd, 1995

Synopsis

'The Golem had a magnificent reception, and the collected volume published in 1915 sold 200,000 copies. Meyrink went on to write several more books, including The Green Face, Walpurgisnacht, the White Dominican and The Angel of the West Window. All have been published in English by Dedalus Books since the mid-1980s, and Mike Mitchell's excellent 1995 translations are definitely worth seeking out. Meyrink was, of course, a contemporary of Kafka, and his novels have a lot in common with Prague's better-known fantasist. As Robert Irwin says in the introduction to the Dedalus edition of The Golem: We have the Castle which is not Kafka's Castle, the Trial which is not Kafka's Trial, and a Prague which is not Kafka's Prague; HP Lovecraft was more succinct, calling The Golem 'the most magnificent weird thing I've come across in aeons'. A century after its first publication, The Golem endures as a piece of modernist fantasy that deserves to take its place alongside Kafka, from an author whose life was almost as fantastic as his fiction.' The Guardian Book Blog 'A superbly atmospheric story set in the old Prague ghetto featuring the Golem, a kind of rabbinical Frankenstein s monster, which manifests every 33 years in a room without a door. Stranger still, it seems to have the same face as the narrator. Made into a film in 1920, this extraordinary book combines the uncanny psychology of doppelganger stories with expressionism and more than a little melodrama... Meyrink s old Prague like Dickens s London is one of the great creation of city writing, an eerie, claustrophobic and fantastical underworld where anything can happen.' Phil Baker in The Sunday Times

About this title

Review:

A remarkable work of horror, half- way between Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Frankenstein. --The Observer

The Golem remains Meyrink's most visionary satisfying work. He was skilled at transforming imagery drawn from hermetic, religious and folklore traditions into startling symbols. --Michael Saler in The Times Literary Supplement

Gustav Meyrink uses this legend in a dream-like setting on the Other Side of the Mirror and he has invested it with a horror so palpable that it has remained in my memory all these years. --Jorge Luis Borgea

From the Publisher:

Review from The Sunday Times
' a superbly atmospheric story set in the old Prague ghetto featuring The Golem, a kind of rabbinical Frankenstein's monster, which manifests iitself every 33 years in a room without a door. Stranger still, it seems to have the same face as the narrator. Made into a film in 1920, this extraordinary book combines uncanny psychology of doppelganger stories with expressionism and more than a little melodrama... Meyrink's old Prague - like Dicken's London - is one of the great creations of City writing, an eerie, claustrophobic and fantastical underworld where anything can happen.' Phil Baker in The Sunday Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Dedalus Ltd
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 1873982917
• ISBN 13: 9781873982914
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 262