So eine Art lyrisches Kaffeehaus

In 1832 the renowned "Weidmann`sche Buchhandlung" (Weidmanns Bookstore), which had existed since 1680, underwent a change in ownership; Georg Andreas Reimer handed it over to his eldest son Karl and his son-in-law Salomon Hirzel, who from then on jointly managed the bookstore until 1853. They made considerable efforts to revive the well-known genre of the "Musenalmanach" (Almanac of the Muses), that is to publish a prestigious and new anthology of modern poetry. In 1832 the two publishers approached Adelbert von Chamisso and asked him to take over editorial responsibility. The enormous reputation of the poet seemed to guarantee that the worthiest writers of the German language area would be willing to hand in their articles. Chamisso`s request to be given Gustav Schwab as a co-editor secured that the enterprise had a man with considerable editing experience. In addition to that, the two editors became a symbol of the unification of northern and southern German aspirations and consequently changed the title of the edition into "Deutscher Musenalmanach" (German Almanac of the Muses), which was meant to be programmatical, and so the editors also turned to Austrian poet Anastasius Grün. The aristocrat, whose homeland was Slovenia, had formed a personal friendship with the Swabian poets around Uhland, since the summer of 1830, and on this journey had become an eye-witness to the French revolution of that very year. Grün was already writing his "Spaziergänge eines Wiener Poeten" (Perambulations of a Viennese Poet). He was being wooed as his audacious tones and rich poetic imagery led to fascinating expectations about the future. Simultaneously, courting the young talent from the southern fringes of the German language area underlined the universal claim the project of the two young publishers was making. Grün, who himself was on the lookout for business associates to help him circumnavigate journalistic difficulties that were being created by people in his vicinity, met this request, and the three formed a life-long friendship. As a consequence of this, 41 of the 49 editions of Grün`s works that were published individually in his lifetime were brought out by Weidmann. Their correspondence comprises the hide-and-seek with Metternich`s censorship authorities and the extensive discussions focusing on the future of the Danube Monarchy and the German federal state, as everything had started to shift in 1848. Likewise, it comprises his struggle for the attention of a wider public in the early years of emperor Franz- Joseph`s reign. These letters, which first and foremost are literarily motivated, also relate to the political events of the time, in a refreshingly straight-forward manner.