Introduction
From Illustrations in German Translations of Mark Twain's Works
The Project
lorem ipsum
Working with the Database
Browsing the collection for a first impression works best by visiting the overview page and then either leafing through one edition at a time or or approaching multiple editions chapter by chapter. 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 Descriptions
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 sortable 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
For example
"hf_1920_hir_ch043_ill1"
which would translate to
"Adventures of Huckleberry Finn / 1920 / Hirth, Edouard / Chapter 43 / Illustration # 1"
The following abbreviations were used in IDs to designate 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: -1pTwo characters: -2p
Three characters: -3p
Four or more characters: -4p+
An animal: -animalA 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
Filtering the catalog of the comparison tool works the same as filtering the sortable catalog. Instead of generating a full-page gallery of the relevant illustrations, the comparison tool also allows users to create two separate slideshows using different sets of illustrations which can then be compared side by side. To showcase the comparison tool's functionality, the Custom Search Builder is used.
The first search query is used to find all illustrations by Rafaello Busoni, that feature the king, the duke or both. Pressing the Search button filters the table and the button Generate Slideshow is used to populate the gallery.
The same steps are repeated to create a slideshow that contains the illustrations of the king and the duke by Alexander Harder.
As a result, the different depictions of the two scoundrels can be compared side by side:
