for working-class and lower-middle-class readers,these novels addressed urgent
social problems but did so inahighlysensationalist,derivative style.Feedback
by subscribers often ledto changes in the interwoven storylines and large cast of
characters,confirmation to what degree serialization drew onawide rangeoflit-
erarygenres and styles to hold readers’attention. Colportagenovels playedan
importantrole in mediatingbetween twovery different forms of engagement,
the world of political activism and associational life and the world of fantasy,
illusion, and escapism. Like the Lassalle cult ingeneral, these products of an
emerging socialist culture industry–two better-known examples areAugust
Otto-Walster’sAmWebstuhlder Zeit(1873,Atthe Loom of Time) and MinnaKaut-
sky’sDieAlten und die Neuen(1884,The Old and the New)–dissolvedthe pub-
lic/private (and male/female) oppositions that,inofficial pronouncementson
working-class culture,required the denunciationofexcessive emotionality as a
symptom of false consciousness. The novels’sentimental and melodramatic mo-
dalities provided pleasures not alwaysavailable in the socialist lending libraries
with their insistenceonmoral upliftand culturalrefinement.Scrambling literary
genres and styles,they introduced contemporary problems into fantasticsettings
and incorporated socialist messages into illusionist scenarios and,inthis partic-
ular case, promised the magicalreconciliation of the proletarian imaginary with
socialreality.Musingabout this hidden dream world of colportage,Ernst Bloch
was one of fewWeimar intellectuals who earlyonrecognized its utopian quali-
ties.“The proletarian revolution,”he noted at one point,“is mostlyhostileto
‘fantastic’literature;yetinfairytale and colportage tension and colorfulness
have their serviceablerefuge,from here they can become troops.”²⁴
The frontispieceinBüttner’sFerdinand Lassalleillustrates perfectlyhow the
personal and the political convergeinthe socialist celebrity,how class divides
are articulated ingenderedterms, and how the medium of colportage bringsto-
gether all these disparate elements (seefigure6.3). Ayoung girl has been sexu-
allyassaulted by the feudal lordwhose castle loomshighaboveinthe back-
schichte16 (2007): 29–63;for ageneral overview,see WernerFaulstich,Medienwandel im Indus-
trie- undMassenzeitalter (1830–1900)(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht,2004). On media
convergenceand the colportage novel, also seeJessica Plummer,“SellingFiction: The German
Colportage Novel 18 71 – 1914 ”(PhDdiss.,University ofTexas atAustin,2016).Foranearlydiscus-
sion of popular and socialist literature, seeTanja Bürgel,“Das Problem der Unterhaltungsliter-
atur in der deutschenArbeiterpressevordem Sozialistengesetz,”inLiteratur und proletarische
Kultur.BeiträgezurKulturgeschichte der deutschen Arbeiterklasse im 19.Jahrhundert(Berlin: Aka-
demie-Verlag,1983), 163–182.
Ernst Bloch,TheHeritage of OurTimes,trans.Stephen and Neville Plaice(Cambridge:Polity,
1991), 168.
Ferdinand Lassalle, the FirstSocialistCelebrity 129