[Rarebooks] FS: Obscure German woman authors on anarchy and wealth

[Mark Funke]

For your consideration:

Two obscure German woman authors writing on anarchy and wealth, respectively.

Anarchist Needs Cash

Prill, Margarete. Die Theorie des kommunistischen Anarchismus nach
Peter Kropotkin [The Theory of Communist Anarchy after Peter
Kropotkin].

[Berlin], Charlottenburg: Gebrüder Hoffmann, 1926. Brochure; 69, [3]
pp. Doctoral dissertation. Inscribed to the author’s uncle along with
a 2 1/2 page hand-written letter (on notepad sized paper) from Dr.
Prill to her uncle, in which she asks him to please provide money
within eight days and announces this is both her first and last
published work. In German. Light creasing along spine; rusted staples;
last leaf torn from staples, but holding well; overall very good.

Radical dissertation providing philosophical and economic review of
anarchy and bolshevism. Dr. Prill acknowledges a role for terrorism
and revolution to bring about societal change. Quoting Kropotkin, she
writes [“Freedoms are not a gift, you need to take them”]. Dr. Prill
was flutist Emil Prill’s daughter.

No other copy currently listed for sale.

$250 (trade discount allowed); plus priority mail shipping.


Woman’s Guide to Wealth and Happiness

Roth, Eliza. Wie man reich wird und Der Schlüssel zum Glück [How to be
Rich and The Key to Happiness].

Leipzig: Verlag von Wilhelm Friedrich, [ca. 1900]. Half-cloth; [6],
248 pp. In German. Pp. 1-37 and 236-248 with numerous pencil
corrections and editing notations; also signed on p. 47 (all by the
author?). Pertaining to date of publication: This work listed in
Allgemeines Literaturblatt, vol. 9 (1900) and Kayser’s Vollständige
Bücher-Lexikon 1750-1910, vol. 32, p. 504. Very good with well worn
boards; pages lightly browned; 1/2 of spine label missing. Pencil
ownership marking on endsheet by “Bötzinger”; stamped ownership
markings of “H. Jantzen, Freiburg i.B.” (likely the Art Historian Hans
Jantzen (1881-1967)) and “P. Hofmann” on flyleaf.

Eliza Roth was a prolific German-American author, considered a “mental
scientist with ties to theosophy”. She wrote nine other books between
1894 and 1913 and in 1902-03 published the monthly newsletter “Der
Wahrheitspiegel” [Mirror of Truth]. One book, a guide to Chicago was
published in the United States.

In this self-help guide she addresses overarching general topics such
as beauty, death, wealth, patience, etcetera. Uncanny similarity to
Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich (first published in 1937). For
example: [”The key to wealth and happiness is in us.. in our desire,
our wanting and our striving... Our thoughts are that which become
truth.”]

This book apparently “lost to time” with no record in OCLC or KVK;
unusual given that Roth was such a prolific author. See Britta
Waldschmidt-Nelson: Christian Science im Lande Luthers, 2009, p. 107.

$250 (trade discount allowed); plus priority mail shipping.

Additional photographs upon request.

Thank you very much, - Mark


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mark funke, bookseller ABAA & ILAB
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