WILLIAM HEINEMANN - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 04/13/1894 - HFSID 23232

WILLIAM HEINEMANN
The English publisher writes about a pending translation of Hungarian Zionist author Max Simon Nordau.
Autograph Letter signed: "W. Heinemann Esq", 4 pages (integral leaf), 4½x7. Swinford, Old Manor, Ashford, Kent, 1894 April 13. To "My Dear Sir", in full: "I had already expressed to Dr. Nordau my misgivings as to the interest to English readers of a good deal in the second volume, & I hope you will succeed in persuading him to consent to some omission, & some [?]. I dare say you are right in what you say concerning the competency of Miss Pauline Schletter for this particular task, which will not be an easy one. I again thank you for what you say concerning a few words of preface from me to the volume. But I cannot hold out any hope of this & I must ask you to be good enough not to press it. Believe me, yours faithfully [signature]. I am not writing again to Dr. Nordau, as the matter is now fully in your hands". WILLIAM HEINEMANN (1863-1920) founded his own English publishing house in 1890. The prestigious firm published works by H. G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, and also many translations of classical and contemporary works. Heinemann died heirless, and the business was acquired by Doubleday & Co. Simon Max Nordau (1849-1923) was a Hungarian Jewish intellectual whose early works attacked "degenerate art" which, he argued, rejected traditional custom and morality. (Among his targets were Nietsche, Ibsen, Wilde, Tolstoy, Wagner, Zola and Whitman.) Later, greatly influenced by the Dreyfus Affair in France, he embraced Zionism, coining the term "muscular Judaism." His works, many of which were published by Heinemann, were originally written in German. Pauline Schletter was a noted translator, although Heinemann here doubts her ability to render Heinemann's writing. Schletter also wrote original works under the pen name Paul Sylvester.