Georg Buchner: The Major Works

The Georg Büchner Prize is the highest literary honor for German language writers, and the full extent of Büchner’s influence—from Gerhart Hauptmann to Christa Wolf, Max Reinhardt to Robert Wilson, Alban Berg to Tom Waits—defies cataloging. When Georg Büchner died in 1837 at the age of twenty-three, he left behind a small and heterogenous body of work, most of it unpublished: three plays, a novella, a political pamphlet, a dissertation, medical lectures, and letters. Matthew Wilson Smith has newly translated Büchner’s introduction to On Cranial Nerves. Each text is accompanied by explanatory annotations. The editor’s introduction examines the complexities of Büchner’s short life and how they informed his writing. The volume also contains ten illustrations. “Contexts” includes Büchner’s correspondence with the people who knew him best, impressions of Büchner from a fellow medical student, excerpts from Büchner’s diary, the wanted poster calling for Büchner’s arrest for political