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Rating: The figure of Hanns Heinz Ewers is well placed in the context of the revival of horror literature in Austria and Germany that occurred between the late 1800s and early 1900s. His name can be associated with those of Gustav Meyrink, Alfred Kubin, Oskar Panizza, Leo Perutz, and Karl Hans Strobl.
These writers were the main authors who gave impetus in Austria and Germany, under the strong influence of the recognized masters of the genre such as Poe (Ewers wrote a memorable essay on the American writer), Hoffmann, Villers de L’Isle Adam, Nerval, and others, to a new fantastic literature that aimed to be an "ideal" revolt against the prevailing culture of positivism and capitalism.
Stylistically, these new "canons" produced a literary aesthetic that made extensive use of decadent and grotesque stylistic elements and often drew on themes that were then widely spread, such as occultism and esotericism. It should not be forgotten that at the time, Germany teemed with numerous sects of theosophical derivation.
Born in Dusseldorf in 1871, Ewers has been fascinated since childhood by the grim atmosphere of German folklore. His figure is one of the most original, eccentric, and nonconformist of the period, and his stories were even appreciated by Adolf Hitler himself.
His narrative always remains on the balance between conscious and unconscious, grotesque, occult, and deviant eroticism where often the woman is identified as a symbol of death and beauty. This theme of the "femme fatale" is a decadent derivation (great is indeed Ewers' admiration for Oscar Wilde) that the German writer masterfully exploits, especially in many of his short stories, often filling it with impulses of sadism and masochism.
Particularly in his masterpiece story "The Spider," the theme is brought to perfection. "The Spider" is continuously reprinted even today and must absolutely not be missing in any library of horror fiction: it witnesses the tragic end, in a room of a small hotel in Paris, of a student who becomes a sort of puppet devoid of energy at the mercy of a woman who is indeed identified with a spider.
It is a pity that there has never been a film version of this gem unless one considers "The Tenant", a famous film by Polanski taken from a novel by Roland Topor that clearly took inspiration from "The Spider".
The story was also published in 1910 in an anthology edited by the famous publishing house Georg Muller of Munich, which at that time enjoyed considerable public approval, alternating classics of horror like Poe and Gogol with the new authors of the period like Meyrink, Kubin, and Strobl.
Besides short stories, Ewers is also famous for some novels full of suggestive and gruesome images such as in the well-known "Mandragora" (Alraune -1911), a book adapted multiple times for cinema, where the female body is seen as the antechamber of Hell. It is a powerful image that sinks its roots into the legends of German medieval folklore and brings to light all the devastating charge of dark, satanic, and prophetic symbolism in which Ewers was a master.
This volume is part of the so-called Frank Braun trilogy, a sort of alter-ego of Ewers himself. Frank Braun is indeed also the dissolute protagonist of two other well-known novels by the German writer: "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (1907) and "The Vampire" (1921).
In these books too, the themes remarkably unite eroticism and mysticism in a delirious and decadent combination that immerses the reader in a universe of mental alienation.
His collaboration on the screenplay of the film "The Student of Prague," one of the masterpieces of Expressionism, should also be remembered.
In Italy, aside from the reprint of "The Spider" and some scattered stories, he unfortunately did not achieve the same notoriety granted to Gustav Meyrink and Alfred Kubin. His best collection was published in 1972 by the series IL SIGILLO NERO of Edizioni del Bosco ("The Spider and Other Tales of Terror").
A great traveler, Ewers toured Europe extensively and went to South America and subsequently to the United States where he was imprisoned due to the outbreak of the Great War. He died in 1943 in Berlin, weakened by tuberculosis and personal problems.
Essential Italian bibliography
Il Raccapriccio (La Nuova Italia Editrice – Venice -1921)
Brividi (Sonzogno – Milan – 1927)
Mandragora (Ed. Cappelli – Bologna – 1922)
Il Ragno e altri racconti del terrore (Il Sigillo Nero – Publisher Del Bosco – Rome 1972)
I Cuori dei re e Altri Racconti (Edizione la Conchiglia – Bari – 2005)
Red Brain (Urania supplement No. 21 -2005 – edited by Dashiel Hammett – contains "The Spider")
Hanns Heinz Ewers. The Wizard of Terror (Hypnos – magazine of literature and fantasy – Milan – 2009)
Margherita Cottone "Fantastic Literature in Austria and Germany (1900-1930) – Gustav Meyrink and Surroundings" (Sellerio editore Palermo – 2009)
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