Johann Peter Hebel is a unique voice in German writing of the Classical and Romantic periods. He was a realist and a moralist in a tradition which eschewed both modes. He listened to everyday speech and embedded his tales in the life of the common folk which made his Rhineland Almanac a bestseller, often the first book a household owned after the Bible. Yet while he has always had discerning admirers in the UK, from the exiled writers Elias Canetti and W.G. Sebald to the contemporary British poets Shenagh Pugh and David Constantine, his work is not as well known outside Germany as it should be. Johann Peter Hebel: Unoriginal Innovator and Sophisticated German Man of Letters is written in a succinct and elegant style and is richly illustrated, offering original readings of many works, including the dialect poetry and Bible stories. It is an ideal and much-needed resource for teachers, students and interested readers alike.

- Professor Julian Preece, University of Swansea, Wales

Hebel’s tales are some of the greatest treasures that German literature has to offer. They are more modern and cosmopolitan than the Grimms’. This book – the first on Hebel in English for more than thirty years – offers a brilliant introduction to the master storyteller and his distinctive voice. The book wears its learning lightly, and is written in a way which is lively, accessible and astute. Like Hebel himself, a pleasure to read.

- Dr Ernest Schonfield, University of Glasgow, Scotland

Johann Peter Hebel (1760-1826) is presently not a familiar presence in German literary history, known in academia only to a small number of specialists. In a recent history of German literature of his era, for example, he garnered only a single sentence. The volume prepared by Scullion, Treby, and Baumgartner, however, may well change this state of affairs. The authors portray Hebel as an individual who pulled himself out of poverty largely by virtue of his native industriousness, intelligence, and talent and achieved contemporary respect as a pastor, teacher, writer, and editor. Most notable among his literary endeavors are his poems in a form of the Alemannic dialect spoken in and around southwestern Germany, his “Treasure Chest” of Rhenish tales, and his cultivation of the almanac tradition in The Rhineland Family Friend. The almanac of Hebel’s time was a potpourri of information for the land worker such as the phases of the moon, tidal charts, and weather forecasts as well as useful information of various kinds, riddles, mathematical puzzles, stories, and poems. Hebel exercised his ingenuity, in part, by creating a persona who relates the stories and articles from his peculiar point of view. Moreover, he artfully composes the layout of the various texts, a process which the authors fruitfully discuss within the framework of Bakhtin’s concept of the carnivalesque, whereby a hybridized text is shaped by numerous discursive influences. The authors understandably position Hebel’s work within the context of the popular enlightenment movement of the 18^th and 19^th centuries. The volume is enhanced by a large number of illustrations, many of them woodcuts and engravings from The Rhineland Family Friend. It is my opinion that this study deserves to be published and read by devotees of German literature, who will come to know a surprisingly sophisticated underappreciated writer.

- Emeritus Professor Herbert Rowland, Purdue University, Indiana, USA
 and Editor of German at The Literary Encyclopdia (www.litencyc.com)

This book is a guide to Johann Peter Hebel’s significant, though small, body of work. It offers English-speaking readers a compact, academically sound, and lively introduction to his literary oeuvre, from his Alemannic Poems and almanac, The Rhineland Family Friend, to his Bible stories. These works are analysed in a knowledgeable and readable manner and contextualised with an eye for what is essential. Even works that have received little attention, such as the early poem “Ecstasy” (Ekstase, 1793), are addressed. By productively applying Mikhail Bakhtin’s concepts to Hebel’s works, the authors manage to convincingly profile the distinctive features of his narrative and poetic art. They use Bakhtinian concepts – such as dialogism, heteroglossia, the chronotope, and the carnivalesque – to sharpen the reader’s awareness for the wealth of themes and perspectives in his oeuvre, for its complexity, its dialogic and polyphonic narrative style, and its intertextuality, as alluded to by the title Johann Peter Hebel – Unoriginal Innovator and Sophisticated German Man of Letters (1760–1826). As a reader, I feel addressed by the authors, swept up and infected by their enthusiasm, and inspired to pick up and study Hebel’s texts myself. What more could one want?

Dieses Buch ist ein Wegweiser durch Johann Peter Hebels schmales, aber gewichtiges Werk. Es bietet einer englischsprachigen Leserschaft eine kompakte, wissenschaftlich fundierte und zugleich lebendige Vermittlung seines literarischen Schaffens, von den Alemannischen Gedichten über den Kalender des Rheinländischen Hausfreundes bis hin zu den Biblischen Geschichten. Das wird kenntnisreich und gut lesbar kommentiert und mit Blick für das Wesentliche kontextualisiert. Auch bisher wenig Beachtetes – wie beispielsweise das frühe Gedicht „Ekstase“ (1793) – erhält Aufmerksamkeit. Mit der produktiven Übertragung von Michail Bachtins Begriffen auf Hebels Werk ist es der Autorschaft zudem auf überzeugende Weise gelungen, die Besonderheiten von Hebels Erzähl- und Dichtkunst klar und einleuchtend zu profilieren. Bachtinsche Konzepte wie Dialogizität, Heteroglossie, Chronotopos und Karneval schärfen den Blick für Hebels Aspekt- und Perspektivereichtum, seine Vielschichtigkeit, seine dialogische bis vielstimmige Erzählweise und seine Intertextualität, worauf der Titel Johann Peter Hebel – Unoriginal Innovator and Sophisticated German Man of Letters (1760-1826) anspielt. Als Leserin fühle ich mich von der Autorschaft angesprochen, von ihrer Begeisterung mitgetragen und angesteckt sowie lesend dazu angeregt, Hebels Texte selbst zur Hand zu nehmen und zu studieren. Was will man mehr?

  Dr Beatrice Mall-Grob

Instructor and Coordinator for German Language Program,Language Centre of the University of Basel
 and former President of the Basler Hebelstiftung (2006-2016)