The Gespensterbuch (literally 'Ghost Book' or 'Book of Spectres'^[1]) is a collection of German ghost stories written by August Apel and Friedrich Laun and published in seven volumes between 1810 and 1817. Volumes five to seven were also published under the title Wunderbuch ('Book of Wonders'). The final volume was published after Apel's death, with stories by his friends Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué and Carl Borromäus von Miltitz. Laun, Fouqué, Miltitz, and Caroline de la Motte Fouqué followed up on the series by publishing another book of ghost stories Aus der Geisterwelt ('From the Spirit-World') (1818).

According to Friedrich Laun's memoirs, Laun had stayed a week at Apel's family estate at Ermlitz, near Schkopau. A few stories were told about ghosts that appeared there at and after dusk, from the times when a high court was located nearby. These stories made such an impression on Apel and Laun, that when they returned to Leipzig they recounted them to their friends over tea. This proved very popular, and they started to hold Gespensterthee ('ghost tea') evenings from time to time, where ghost stories were told, and which led Apel and Laun to write the Gespensterbuch.^[2]

They tried to add variety to the book by including the comic fairy tales "König Pfau" (Apel's retelling of Madame d'Aulnoy's "La Princesse Rosette"^[3]) and "Das Ideal" (an original tale by Laun) in the first volume. The response to these stories was negative, and they did not include fairy tales in later volumes.^[2] The first volume also included "Der Freischütz", a story written by Apel about a hunter making a pact with the devil. Johann Georg Theodor Grässe traced the origin of this story to a 1730 book called Monatliche Unterredungen aus dem Reich der Geister ('Monthly Conversations from the Spirit-World') which contained a similar story taken from a 1710 court session in Bohemia. Laun owned a copy of this book, and Grässe theorised that he brought the story to the attention of Apel.^[4][5] Some characters in the stories may have been based on personal acquaintances, such Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Wagner (1770–1813), a police actuary, who may have inspired "Aktuarius Wermuth" in "Die schwarze Kammer".^[6]

Both Apel and Laun knew Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, whose play Claudine von Villa Bella (1776) may have influenced Laun's "Die Todtenbraut". Scholar Robert Stockhammer notes that "Der Todtenkopf" contains characters inspired by Cagliostro, who Goethe had written on, and who may have been discussed when Laun visited Goethe in 1804.^[7] Goethe's "Erlkönig" (1782) also inspired Apel's poem "Alp".^[8][9][10]

For the fifth volume, they decided to expand the scope from ghosts to anything that could not be explained by the laws of nature, and gave the series a second title: Wunderbuch ('Book of Wonders'). In another attempt to add variety, they decided to invite other authors to contribute, which led to Apel's friends Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué and Carl Borromäus von Miltitz writing stories for the final volume of the Wunderbuch.^[2]

The first volume of Gespensterbuch was published in 1810 by G. J. Goschen in Leipzig, with a coloured frontispiece illustration of the story "Das Ideal" ('The Ideal'). Very few copies of this edition have survived, leading many sources to assume the series was published from 1811, when the first volume was reprinted (this time without the frontispiece), simultaneously with the second and third volumes. Volume four was published later in the same year.^[11]

The fifth volume was published in 1815 with two title pages: one giving the title as Gespensterbuch volume five, and another with the title Wunderbuch ('Book of Wonders') volume one. This reflected Apel and Laun's decision to expand the scope of the books to include other supernatural stories.^[2] Volume six was published in the same way in 1816.^[12] The final volume was published in 1817 only under the title Wunderbuch volume three, but the signature marks in page footers of some editions say Gespensterbuch 7 Theil ('Gespensterbuch Volume 7').^[13]

The book has been reprinted several times since then. The Macklots published the last four volumes in Stuttgart from 1816–1818.^{[note 4]} Following the premiere of Weber's Der Freischütz (1821), Apel's Der Freischütz eine Volkssage was reprinted in its own volume by Fleischer in 1823.^[17] Gespensterbuch was reprinted by Philipp Reclam junior in Leipzig (1885),^[18] Belser in Stuttgart (1987–1990),^[19] and Aufbau-Taschenbuch in Berlin (1991).^[20]

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Gespensterbuch

Jean-Baptiste Benoît Eyriès translated five of the Gespensterbuch stories into French for his anthology Fantasmagoriana (1812).^[a] Three of these were translated from French to English by Sarah Elizabeth Utterson in Tales of the Dead (1813),^[b] and again by Marjorie Bowen (1933–1935).^[c] The two remaining stories were translated by both A. J. Day (2005),^[d] and Anna Ziegelhof (2023).^[e] Some of these stories were also translated directly from the German, including Thomas De Quincey's "The Black Chamber" (1823),^[f] and Robert Pearse Gillies' "The Sisters" and "The Spectre Bride" (1826).^[g]

Following the success of Carl Maria von Weber's opera Der Freischütz (1821), the Gespensterbuch story that it was based on – also called "Der Freischütz" – was translated into English several times. The first translation was by Thomas De Quincey (1823),^[h] followed by Walter Sholto Douglas (1825),^[i] George Godfrey Cunningham (1829),^[j] an anonymous translation (1833),^[k] and Jacob Wrey Mould (1849).^[l]

Several more Gespensterbuch stories were translated individually, mostly in magazines and annuals: "The Raven: A Greek Tale" (1823),^[m] "The Lamia: Greek Tradition" (1824),^[n] "The Spectre Unmasked" (1824),^[o] "The Dance of the Dead" (1824),^[p] "New Year's Eve: The Omens" (1824),^[q] "Death Tokens" (1825),^[r] "The Veiled Bride" (1825),^[s] "Head Master Rhenfried and His Family" (1826),^[t] "The Bridal Ornaments" (1826),^[u] "The Piper of Neisse" (1829),^[v] "The Spirit's Summons" (1835),^[w] "The Silver Lady" (1837),^[x] "The Two New Year's Nights" (1839),^[y] "Fatal Curiosity" (1845),^[z] and "The Night-Mare" (1845).^[aa] In addition to these translations, some authors adapted Gespensterbuch stories for an English-speaking audience, such as Walter Sholto Douglas' "The Three Damsels" in Forget-Me-Not for 1827 (1826), based on part of "Die Bräutigamsvorschau", and J. E. Preston Muddock's "The Dance of the Dead" in Tales of Terror (1899), based on "Der Todtentanz". Some translations were never published, such as Walter Sholto Douglas' translation of "Zauberliebe",^[25] and a translation of "Der Gespensterläugner" started by De Quincey in autumn 1824.^[26]

The first tale in the first volume is "Der Freischütz", a retelling by Apel of the Freischütz folktale. It formed the inspiration for Weber's opera Der Freischütz (1821).^[27] However, unlike Apel's version, in Weber's opera the final bullet does not kill the protagonist's fiancée, but is deflected, and kills the huntsman who convinced him to cast the bullets instead.

In June 1816, Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John William Polidori and Claire Clairmont read Fantasmagoriana (1812), a collection of German ghost stories translated into French, five of which were from the Gespensterbuch. Inspired by the book, the group decided to write their own ghost stories, with Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein, and Polidori writing The Vampyre, based on Byron's "Fragment of a Novel".^[1]

Two of the five Gespensterbuch stories in Fantasmagoriana had a significant influence on Frankenstein. "Die Todtenbraut" ('The Dead Bride') was one of the two stories Mary Shelley described in her introduction to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein, and the death of Frankenstein's wife Elizabeth may have been inspired by the story,^[28] while "Die schwarze Kammer" ('The Black Chamber') is similar to Mary Shelley's account of the dream that inspired Frankenstein, of a haunting figure standing at the bedside.^[29]

Another of the Gespensterbuch stories in Fantasmagoriana, "Die Verwandtschaft mit der Geisterwelt" ('The Connection with the Spirit-World', translated as "L'Heure fatale", 'The Fatal Hour'), may have been an inspiration for the Astarte scene in Byron's Manfred, which he began in late 1816.^[30]

Joseph von Auffenberg's 1824 play, Viola, oder die Vorschau ('Viola, or The Preview') was based on Apel's "Die Bräutigamsvorschau" from volume 2 of Gespensterbuch.^[31]