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Frans Masereel : Die Passion Eines Menschen 25 Holzschnitte V. Frans Masereel / Bei Kurt Wolff Muenchen

Kurt Wolff Verlag, Munich, 1927.

Original publisher’s paper boards with title and vignette to upper board, spine defective. , Spine defective, otherwise a very good copy, text and plates are clean and crisp., Square 8vo. , Foliation. 1 ff., title, half-title, 25 woodcuts, publisher’s note, advertisements, 1 ff., Complete with 25 woodcuts by Frans Masereel, depicting the life struggle of a man born in poverty, arrested as a youth, becoming a construction worker upon leaving prison, and eventually organizing a union for his colleagues, iarrested during a standoff with police, facing trial beneath the blinding light of a crucifix, and left standing before what is presumed to be a firing squad.

The publisher, Kurt Wolff, was an influential German publisher who was responsible for the skyrocketing success of Franz Kafka’s early career. This book, telling the story of a poor worker fighting for workers’ rights, juxtaposes the humanist sentiment invoked by a young man’s being made to suffer in a capitalist society with the cruel rigidity identified with the traditional family, the factory, the police, and eventually the church and the courts. The motif of a man bearing a cross seen on the cover and the title seems in this context a stark contrast with the crucifix depicted in the trial plate, seeking to identify the young man with Jesus, different from the unjust system identified with the crucifix.

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