Literature in the Lincke Collection translated from the Spanish, French and English into German: A bibliographic survey of translations in the Lincke Collection at the University of Chicago

The Lincke Collection contains over 15,000 volumes of popular literature in German published between 1780-1880 which the University of Chicago acquired in 1930. It had formerly been part of the Lincke's Rental Library of Leipzig and has been designated as the Lincke Collection. Of the collections 1,945 translations my dissertation catalogues 901 English, 657 French, and 28 Spanish titles.;The translations of the collection consist mainly of narrative prose, or the novel, along with a few dramas, and some poetry. Lincke's Rental Library offered its readers the newest and best of German, French and English authors, as well as scholarly journals. Aside from the limited number of classics, obscure texts which were once best-sellers were in demand by Leipzig's middle class reader. These works comprised the "Unterhaltungs-literature" of the last century in Leipzig. Popular literature distinguished itself by having a definite consumer.;The Lincke collection is unique for the United States, not only because it represents the nineteenth century German rental library, but also because it contains a significant number of authors whose works cannot be found in the United States as well as in the former West Germany. The obscurity of the authors in the collection increases their interest in research in the field of popular culture. At the time the University acquired the collection, too little scholarly attention was given to popular literature. The collection's potential usefulness has become more evident with the increasing scholarship in that field.;A study of the translations in the collection allows scholars to gain insight into the reading habits in nineteenth century Germany. Equipped with the bibliographical data I provide in the title list, scholars can determine the nature of the library's holdings, at various times, and draw conclusions about the circulation of the books in the collection, and about the readers whom the Linckesche Leihbibliothek served.