Introduction

From Illustrations in German Translations of Mark Twain's Works

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The Project

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Working with the Database

Browsing the collection for a first impression works best by visiting the overview page and then using the hyperlinks in the tables either to leaf through one edition at a time or to approach multiple editions chapter by chapter at the same time. Knowledge of the tags and abbreviations is helpful but not required for this approach.

For specific search queries, the sortable catalog or the comparison tool can be used. We highly recommend reading the paragraphs below before using those tools. Knowing what the image descriptions contain, what the abbreviations stand for and what the different tools are capable of, helps unlock the full potential of the research tools provided on this website.

Image Description


Each picture uploaded to this database contains the following information:

Title - In some editions the illustrations include a title. If no title was added by the publisher, we either assigned a descriptive title or, when applicable, used a title from an older illustration that bears resemblence to the illustration in question.

ID - For structuring purposes, each image was assigned a shorthand ID consisting of the illustrators name, the year, the chapter and the illustration number. (see: IDs)

Book - The (German) title of the publication the illustration appears in.

Year - The year of publication.

Illustrator - "Last name, first name" of the illustrator.

Original Chapter and Chapter in this Edition - Sometimes, the chapter numbering in the German translations differs from the original edition. "Original chapter" refers to the structure of the 1884/1885 release of the novel and places the illustrated event within its corresponding chapter. "Chapter in this Edition" reflects the chapter numbering used in the German translation.

Illustration Number - Since chapters can include multiple illustrations, they are numbered in chronological order.

Tags - The contents of the illustrations are tagged and added to the description. (see: Tags)


Examples

In the catalog:


When inspecting a file:


Abbreviations

This section explains the different abbreviations used in IDs and tags on this webpage. They are especially helpful, when working with the catalog or the comparison tool to quickly filter the illustrations.

IDs

IDs are uniquie identifiers and use the following structure:

work_year_illustrator_originalchapter_illustrationnumber


Our example "hf_1920_hir_ch043_ill1" means: "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn / 1920 / Hirth, Edouard / Chapter 43 / Illustration # 1"


The following abbreviations were used for the different illustrators:


kmb - Kemble, Edward W.

schr - Schrödter, H. / Schroedter, H.

hir - Hirth, Edouard

tri - Trier, Walter

kel - Kellerer, Max

har - Harder-Khasán, Alexander

bus - Busoni, Rafaello

beb - Bebié, Irma Anita

Chapter numbers in the ID-string always consist of three numbers and include a leading zero. Thus, chapters 1 through 9 are referred to as "00x" and chapters 10 through 43 are "0xx". Illustrations that were not part of any chapter but appeard on covers, dustjackets, flyleaves and the likes use the same structure as above except for "chapter" and "illustration number":

"hf_1940_bus_flyleaf" is the ID of the flyleaf in the 1940 translation of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn illustrated by Rafaello Busoni.

Tags

Tags are part of the image description and reflect who or what is seen in the illustration.

Huckleberry Finn: -huck

Jim: -jim

Tom Sawyer: -tom

Pap Finn: -pap

The King: -king

The Duke: -duke

Other Characters: -sdc

Female Characters: -fem

Black Characters (except Jim): -aac

A single person: -1p

Two characters: -2p

Three characters: -3p

Four or more characters: -4p+

An animal: -animal

A scenery: -scn
A boat: -boat

Tags were also used to differentiate between drawings, gray-scale images and colored illustrations.

-drawing

-grayscale

-color

In cases where ilustrations show events which were not part of the original story, the tag "-inv" is used to signal an "invented scene."

Tools

Two tools are featured on this website: the sortable catalog and the comparison tool. The sortable catalog allows users to filter and sort the catalog of illustrations and then inspect many images at one, while the comparison tool can be used to compare different (sets of) illustrations side by side.

Sortable Catalog

The sortable catalog is an interactive data table containing all illustrations and their descriptions. The entries can be filtered and sorted using the cells in the top row of the table. Multiple queries can be combined as shown in the example below.

First, the search term "scn" is used to find all illustrations that include the tag "-scn" for "scenery":

This search yields 26 illustrations. Now a second tag is entered. Only the illustrations that include the tags "-scn" and "-huck" are displayed.

If one is only interested in scenic illustrations featuring Huckleberry Finn by Max Kellerer, the "Illustrator" column can be used to specify the search query.

As shown in this example, filtering the table using the cells in the top row applies an intersectional logic. For more advanced logical combinations of search terms, the Custom Search Builder ("Add Condition") can be used. After combining as many logical conditions and search terms as desired, pressing the button "Search" in the bottom right corner will also filter the catalog accordingly.

The filtered and sorted images can be inspected by hovering/clicking their IDs or by pressing the button "Load Gallery in New Tab" which opens a new tab displaying the relevant illustrations.

Comparison Tool

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