Author: Wells, H. G. (Herbert George), 1866-1946.

Title: Die Riesen kommen / H. G. Wells ; Deutsch von Felix Paul Greve ; mit Zeichnungen von Hans Friedrich. --

Published: Minden (Westf.) : J.C.C. Bruns' Verlag, [c1904].

Description: 388 p. : ill ; 17 cm. --

Note: Verso of tp: "Der vorliegende Band wurde gedruckt und gebunden bei J.C.C. Bruns, Minden in Westfalen."

Contents:
Inhalts-Verzeichnis, p. [389]:
Erstes Buch. Der Nahrstoff dammert auf: Die Entdeckung des Nahrstoffs ; Die Experimentalfarm ; Die Riesenratten ; Die Riesenkinder ; Die Erniedrigung Mr. Bensingtons. --
Zweites Buch. Der Nahrstoff im Dorf: Der Nahrstoff kommt auf ; Der Riesenbalg. --
Drittes Buch. Die Ernte des Nahrstoffs: Die veranderte Welt ; Das Riesenliebespaar ; Der junge Caddles in London ; Redwoods zwei Tage ; Das Riesenlager.

Annotation: See also the H. G. Wells Folder in Mss 12, Box 1 (FPG Documents): it contains photocopies of prefatory materials of all six of Greve's Wells translations into German. Many of these were autographed or had dated prefaces containing precious information about Greve's where-abouts and activities for his post-prison time, 1904-1906. The copies of the six title pages, prefaces, etc. were obtained from the Urbana-Champaign Wells Collection in January 1991. -- For further information see a detailed BISON Record for Wells's Wheel of Chance & The Time Machine in a 1935 Everyman's Library edition found in Grove's personal library.
"Die Riesen kommen!" (orig. "Food for the Gods", Macmillan, 1904) was the first of Greve's initial three Wells translations in 1904. He likely started working on them while in Bonn prison in 1903/1904. Urbana has correspondence indicating that Greve negotiated translation rights for these initial translations from prison in November, 1903, giving his address simply as "Wilhelmstrasse 19, Bonn". Exactly a year later, he sent copies of "Die Riesen kommen!", "Die Zeitmaschine" (orig. "The Time Machine", Heinemann, 1895) & "Dr. Moreaus Insel" (orig. "The Island of Doctor Moreau", 1896, Heinemann) to Wells with the following mss. dedication note on the title page of "Riesen" (it accounted for all three books): "Dear Mr. Wells, / May I send you the three first volumes of / this new edition of your works as a sign of / my profound admiration? / Yours very truly / F. P. Greve / Wollerau, November, 1904."
Wells' original book "The Food of the Gods" was published by Macmillan in 1904, and must have been translated as simultaneously as possible, since FPG's work also appeared in 1904 with J.C.C. Bruns Publishers'imprint. -- In 1905, Greve translated both The first Men in the Moon [1901] as Die ersten Menschen im Mond, and Anticipations [1901] as Ausblicke auf die Folgen... In 1906, his last known translation of When the Sleeper Wakes [1899] als Wenn der Schlafer erwacht was published.
Opposite the title page of RBR's copy, there is no advertisement; this is one of several significant differences when compared to the original edition held at Urbana. Our copy must be a later edition on cheaper and smaller paper. Greve's presentation copy was 19.5 cm, whereas ours measures 17 cm. The Urbana cover has an ornate frame, but a clear font type, our copy is bound in yellow cloth with a simple line frame, but with the rather ornate "Gothic" or "Fraktur" font type. Urbana's book displays the Bruns logo, an eagle and a nude in thinking pose, on cover & title page, ours has only a small, orchid-like design in a circle on a half-title page. The table of contents is at the back in our book, it is at the front in Urbana's, and across it, the German Dr. Moreau & Time Machine are advertised as published, The First Men in the Moon (Newnes, 1901) & When the Sleeper Wakes (Harper, 1899). The illustrations by Hans Friedrich are only found in our copy.

Local Note: Acquired for RBR with the help of the FPG (Greve/ Grove) Endowment Fund in November 2001 by Dr. G. Divay, via the ZVAB website from Versandantiquarian Matthias Wagner, Berlin (received & catalogued March 2002).