Kurt Wolff published a trade edition of Masereel’s wordless novel, Mein Stundenbuch, in three successive years with a total run of 15,000 copies. Transmare Verlag published a further 1,000 copies

Dust jacket showing the front cover and spine of the Wolff Trade edition of Masereel’s woodcut novel, Mein Stundenbuch.
Dust jacket showing the front cover and spine
of the Wolff Trade edition of Masereel’s
woodcut novel, Mein Stundenbuch.
Wolff Trade edition of Masereel’s woodcut novel, Mein Stundenbuch with a card cover.
Wolff Trade edition of Masereel’s woodcut novel,
Mein Stundenbuch with a card cover.
Title page to the Trade edition of Masereel's wordless novel, Mein Stundenbuch, published by Kurt Wolff.
Title page to the Trade edition of Masereel’s wordless
novel, Mein Stundenbuch, published by Kurt Wolff.
Sample pages of Masereel's wordless story, Mein Stundenbuch, published by Kurt Wolff. Images printed recto and verso.
Sample pages of Masereel’s wordless story, Mein Stundenbuch,
published by Kurt Wolff. Images printed recto and verso.
  • Title: Mein Stundenbuch
  • Author and Illustrator: Masereel, Frans
  • Introduction: 32-page introduction by Thomas Mann. This was not present in the 1920 limited editions published by Wolff.
  • Date of publication: 1926-27-28
  • Publisher: Kurt Wolff
  • Place of publication: Munich
  • Printer: ?
  • Copyright: Artist?
  • Dimensions: 15.5 x 12 cm
  • Dust jacket: Yes
  • slipcase: No
  • Binding: hard cover (thin card)
  • Language: German titles, etc
  • Paginated: unpaginated
  • Printed: verso and recto
  • 165 woodcuts (the original had 167 images, but one depicting fornication and another one showing the protagonist urinating on the crowd below were omitted from this Trade edition).
  • Not printed from the original matrix:

Trade edition published in three successive years

  • 1926 Mein Stundenbuch Trade edition of 1 – 5 thousand copies
    • References: Avermaete 4.1b
Text indicating the edition size for the 1926 Trade edition by Wolff of Masereels' wordless novel, Mein Stundenbuch.
Text indicating the edition size for the 1926 Trade edition
by Wolff of Masereels’ wordless novel, Mein Stundenbuch.
  • 1927 Mein Stundenbuch Trade edition; 2nd printing of 6 – 10 thousand
    • References: Avermaete 4.1c
Publication page of Kurt Wolff's publication of the 1927 Trade edition of Masereel's woodcut novel, Mein Stundenbuch. It shows copies 6 - 10 thousand were published.
Publication page of Kurt Wolff’s publication of the 1927 Trade
edition of Masereel’s woodcut novel, Mein Stundenbuch.
It shows copies 6 – 10 thousand were published.
Advertisement on the back of the dust jacket for the Trade edition by Kurt Wolff of Masereel's wordless novel, Mein Stundenbuch. The price of Die Sonne is 2.5 marks.
Advertisement on the back of the dust jacket for the
Trade edition by Kurt Wolff of Masereel’s wordless novel,
Mein Stundenbuch. The price of Die Sonne is 2.5 marks.
Image credit: Czechia_aaa5
  • 1928 Mein Stundenbuch Trade edition of 11 – 15 thousand
    • References: Avermaete 4.1d
Text indicating the edition size of Kurt Wolff's 1928 Trade edition of Masereel's wordless novel, Mein Stundenbuch, showing copies 11 to 15,000 were produced.
Text indicating the edition size of Kurt Wolff’s 1928 Trade edition
of Masereel’s wordless novel, Mein Stundenbuch, showing
copies 11,000 to 15,000 were produced.
Dust Jacket for the 3rd (1928) trade edition by Kurt Wolff of Masereel's woodcut novel, Mein Stundenbuch.
Dust Jacket for the 3rd (1928) trade edition by Kurt Wolff of
Masereel’s woodcut novel, Mein Stundenbuch. Image credit: Manaru
  • c. 1929 4th printing.
    • Transmare Verlag, Berlin, took over from Wolff
    • Transmare only printed an extra 1000 copies ie 15 – 16 thousand.
Circa 1929, front dust jacket published by Transmare Verlag of Masereel's wordless story, Mein Stundenbuch.
Circa 1929, front dust jacket published by Transmare Verlag
of Masereel’s wordless story, Mein Stundenbuch.
Image credit: Antiquariat Friederichsen
Title page published by Transmare Verlag of Masereel's wordless story, Mein Stundenbuch. Image credit: Antiquariat Friederichsen
Title page published by Transmare Verlag of Masereel’s
wordless story, Mein Stundenbuch.
Image credit: Antiquariat Friederichsen

Advertisement circa 1927

Advertisement published by Kurt Wolff c. 1927 for Masereel's books.
Advertisement published by Kurt Wolff c. 1927 for Masereel’s books.

NOTE: the book title is Mein Stundenbuch (My Book of Hours) but the above advertisement reads Das Stundenbuch (The Book of Hours).

Translation of the Thomas Mann portion of the advertisement above:

Darken the room! Sit down by the reading lamp next to this book and let its concentrated light fall on its pictures as you turn page after page: not too carefully; it is no misfortune if you do not immediately understand each picture, any more than that is decisive in certain other places. Let his powerful black and white faces, moving with light and shadow, run through your mind, starting from the first, from the railway carriage roaring crookedly in the smoke that carries the hero into life, to the starry sky of a defleshed man, finally: where are you? By what popular entertainment do you think you have been taken, albeit taken in an incomparably more intimate and purer way than you have ever been granted there?

A foreign film magazine recently asked whether people believed that something intellectual and artistic could ever be made out of cinema. I answered: “Oh, yes.” They then asked which film I had ever seen that had moved me the most. I wrote: “Masereel’s Stundenbuch.”

Thomas Mann

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