The Lost Library
The Lost Library by Walter Mehring, published by Westholme Publishing in 2011, is a poignant exploration of the intersection between literature and history. This edition, comprising 304 pages, presents Mehring’s reflections on his life as a literary figure born in Berlin at the end of the nineteenth century. The narrative unfolds against the backdrop of his father’s extensive library, which symbolizes the civilizing power of literature and the profound impact of the rise of fascism on free-thinking artists.
In The Lost Library: The Autobiography of a Culture, Mehring recounts his experiences as a poet and cabaret lyricist during the vibrant avant-garde period between the world wars. He reflects on the significance of books in his life and the tragic fate of his father’s library, which was ultimately destroyed by the Nazis. Through his insightful comparisons of the humanism of the nineteenth century with the chaos of the twentieth, Mehring delves into themes of cultural progress and the loss of ideals. This work invites readers to consider the enduring value of literature amidst societal upheaval.
Official synopsis Publisher
Born in Berlin at the end of the nineteenth century, Walter Mehring inherited both his father’s respect for the civilizing power of literature and his formidable library of thousands of books. Like his father, believed that books and reading were essential to progress, mutual understanding, and contentment. After having served in World War I, Mehring spent the years between the world wars as part of the exhilarating avant-garde coffeehouse culture of Europe’s capitals; he himself was a poet, cabaret lyricist, and founder of the Dadaist movement in Berlin. But with the rise of fascism, Europe became a dangerous place for free-thinking artists. Mehring never envisioned that the culture of books celebrated in his father’s library would be rejected by the sudden rise to prominence of the Nationalist Socialist Party. Soon, even his own books were burned by the Brownshirts and Mehring was forced to roam Europe as a literary fugitive. From a precarious exile in Vienna, he arranged for his father’s books to be smuggled out of Germany, but their fate would be worse than his–while Mehring managed to slip out of Austria and avoid capture, his library was confiscated and destroyed by the Nazis in 1938.
In The Lost Library: The Autobiography of a Culture, translated by Richard and Clara Winston and presented in paperback for the first time, Mehring takes the reader with him as he unpacks the crates of books in his mind, and in the process recalls what each book meant to him and his father. Writing with wit and insight, Mehring successfully compares the humanism of his father’s era with the chaos of Europe at war, using his father’s library as a metaphor for how the optimism of nineteenth-century progress gave way to the disorder and book-burning of the twentieth.
“It is with love and not a little bitterness that the author touches on the various tomes of his father’s library [and through them] on the history of man’s ideas, on the magnificence of our cultural progress, . . . and on the eventual destruction of the beauty and ideals that man had been able to create. . . . Beautifully conceived and beautifully executed.”–The Atlantic
“Whoever cares for books will love this book about books.”–New York Times
“The Lost Library cannot be read without profit.”–Times Literary Supplement
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