/lit/ - Literature

Kraut anon here. Carlyle was really popular in the Kaisers Germany. In part of course because he took such a positive view of German society and the German nation at the time, but also and mainly because his morality perfectly aligned with that of the ascending bourgeois, who were of course the descendants of one of Germanys most heroic generations (-> hero worship). In WW1 his popularity was at an all time high and a book called "Arbeiten und nicht Verzweifeln" (Work and despair not) was printed over a million times for the troops and the homefront. It's a collection of five essays that I dont think has a counterpart in that arrangement in english. I got a version from the trenches, printed 1915/16. The comment by the publisher translates to
>Thomas Carlyle requires no introduction in Germany and this collection too - justified in a time in which few find leisure for reading older and extensive works - can do without preface. To those for whom it is compiled, the title says enough. May it strengthen a joy and satisfaction at working here, increase faith in the inner justness of things there.

I'm reading Thomas Carlyles Work And Despair Not right now, which might not exist in english as it's a collection of his works published under that name in Germany. My version is 107 years old and was read by soldiers in the trenches. It's from a genre called perseverance literature that was popular in WW1 at the front and the homefront. Basically it's motivational/self help literature from over a century ago. I find it very edifying. It also helped me understand why they had a different caliber of men back then and what I need to do to bekome like them.

And I have a bookmark painted by my gf