Emil Ludwig, *The Son of Man*: A Novel [1929]

Title: The Son of Man: A Novel.

Author: LUDWIG Emil [real name Emil Cohn] (1881–1948) [German-Swiss writer, journalist, master of modern psychological biography, author of monographs on Goethe, Bismarck, and Napoleon]

Translation and introduction: Paweł Hulka-Laskowski (1881–1961)

Publisher: Renaissance Publishing Institute, Warsaw

Year of publication: 1929. Series: Builders of the World.

Format: 20 cm

Number of pages: 240

Binding: Period half-leather with gilt lettering on the spine.

Emil Ludwig—born in Wrocław as Emil Cohn, author of the famous psychological biographies of Goethe, Bismarck, and Napoleon—took on a subject that electrified readers across Europe in 1928: he wrote a fictionalized biography of Jesus of Nazareth, treating him exclusively as a historical figure and completely disregarding the theological dimension. He subjected the Gospels to critical analysis just like any other historical source, focusing on the psychology, humanity, and social environment of his subject. The book immediately caused a storm—church circles accused Ludwig of blasphemy, historians of religion questioned his methodology, and yet the work sold tens of thousands of pieces. The Polish edition of 1929 was published just one year after the original German version—translated by Paweł Hulka-Laskowski, an outstanding Evangelical writer, translator, and journalist associated, among other publications, with *Wiadomości Literackie*, who provided the book with his own introduction. The cover of the original paperback edition was designed by Karol Hiller (1891–1939)—one of the leading figures of the Polish Constructivist avant-garde, the creator of the original heliography technique, who was murdered by the Germans in the Lućmierskie Forests near Łódź in December 1939.

This volume combines several layers of collector’s appeal: a high-profile, controversial text by one of the 20th century’s most widely read biographers, the involvement of a leading figure of the Polish avant-garde in its creation, and the solid, period-appropriate binding in which this piece is housed. This is a title from Emil Ludwig’s extensive body of work that is rarely found on the market, of interest both to collectors of interwar literature and to those building a collection related to Polish art of the 1920s and 1930s.

This piece features an ex-libris by Wojciech Dominikowski on the endpaper—a Warsaw-based collector and bibliophile whose collections have appeared at renowned bibliophilic auctions. The piece is complete, in clean condition, with a period half-leather binding.

Catalog ID: 2176-20-A-Y