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When he arrived in New York City in1941, Kurt Wolff had been out of the publishing business for 11 years. A titled nobelman, he moved into publishing in 1908 after receiving a doctorate in German literature, and for more than twenty years brought out first-time experimental work by a roster of extraordinary writers, including literature by Georg Heym, Franz Kafka, Karl Kraus, Joseph Roth, George Trakl, and Robert Walser; art by Klee, Kokoschka, and Masereel; and art history by Erwin Panofsky, among others. In 1930, due to both the financial crisis and a serious lack of what he considered 'new' work, Wolff gave up publishing. In European exile since 1933, he was interned in several camps in France before finally escaping through Spain to the U.S. In New York his calling as a publisher seemed to renew itself. |