Gaulke,J.
In steerage. A cultural picture from emigrant life. Berlin-Tempelhof, Freier literarischer Verlag 1909. 8°. 256 S. OLn. with gilt-stamped spine and cover titles. (Faintly rubbed.). (= Documents of Culture and Humanity, vol. 3). - First edition. - ╔With autograph dedication by Johannes Gaulke on endpaper.╗ - The writer, translator, and literary scholar Johannes Gaulke (1869-1938) here recounts his experiences in North America. - "Information on Johannes Gaulke's life and works remains very fragmentary. Johannes Gaulke was born in Kolberg (now Kolobrzeg, Poland) in 1869 and was a childhood friend of Magnus Hirschfeld. In the early 1890s, he traveled to New York with Hirschfeld and a sculptor friend, where he founded the interior design firm Jaeger & Gaulke. After business failure, he returned to Berlin and became a writer and translator. Gaulke worked as editor of the Magazin für Litteratur from 1900 to 1902 and was the first German-language translator of Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray in 1901. In 1906 he was named as a "well-known essayist" in the standard biobibliographical work Führer durch die moderne Literatur by Hanns Heinz Ewers, and from 1909 he edited three books under the series title Kultur- und Menschheitsdokumente: Die ästhetische Kultur des Kapitalismus and Im Zwischendeck. Ein Kulturbild aus dem Auswandererleben by Gaulke himself and Sexuelle Jugenderziehung. Letters to a Grandmother by Leo Berg. In his writings on homosexuality, Gaulke also used the pseudonym "Ludwig E. West." Ferdinand Karsch-Haack (1853-1936) was the first to assume that "West" and Gaulke were one and the same author. Recent research supports this assumption, and today, for example, Gaulke's 1901 essay "Das homosexuelle Problem" can be considered a preliminary draft of "West's" 1903 book Homosexuelle Probleme. Johannes Gaulke was one of the first signatories of the petition of the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (WhK) against the 175 RStGB" (Magnus Hirschfeld Society) addressed to the Reichstag in December 1897. - Vord. Inner joint somewhat chipped, good copy.
