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Austria
Lucia Binder
Although German-speaking countries have in the past had, and still have, much in
common in their literatures, and mutual influences can be clearly discerned, Austria
has a distinct literature for children and young people.
The beginnings of an Austrian literature specially written for children can be traced to
the time of the empress Maria Theresia and her son Josef II, when great educational
reforms took place. Two authors dominated the children’s book market and were widely
read—the catholic teacher Leopold Chimani (1774–1844) and the Protestant Jakob Glatz
(1776–1831). Their writings reveal the influence of the Enlightenment besides a religious
touch.
During the Romantic period, the first collections of fairy tales were published.
Swashbuckling and wild west adventure stories began to appear towards the middle of
the nineteenth century, and of course some children’s books that glorified the Habsburg
dynasty and national ideals could also be found.
The most important influence on the development of literature came from the German
children’s book movement advocated by Heinrich Wolgast, who wished to give the young
readers the best quality literature. For Austria this meant that texts by well-known
authors for adults like Peter Rosegger, Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach or Franz Karl
Ginzkey were adapted and published for young readers.
Also characteristic in the development of Austrian children’s literature were the series
of inexpensive, but well-illustrated books published by Jugend und Volk publishing
house. The best known of these series, which also in some ways represented a
breakthrough in artistic illustration was Gerlachs Jugendbücherei (1901). It contained
sagas, poems, legends and was designed in Art Nouveau style. (Today collectors pay high
prices for these books.) Another series, Science for Children (from 1937) contained true-
to-life stories and science fiction.
In the first third of the twentieth century, many well known illustrators worked with
children’s books, for instance Oskar Laske, whose late-impressionistic, imaginative
illustrations were quite famous. One of the best examples are the famous colour-
lithographs to the Leporello Noah’s Ark (1925).
During the Second World War, most children’s books in Austria derived from
Germany, but there were also some easy-to-read books by the Austrian teacher Annelies
Umlauf-Lamatsch, illustrated by Ernst Kutzer, which were widely read by elementary
schoolchildren. The stories by Umlauf-Lamatsch were simple and mostly located in