Menschheitsdammerung: Dawn of Humanity a Document of Expressionism

The first translation, into any language, of Kurt Pinthus's Menschheitsdämmerung (The Dawn of Humanity) - by far the most significant and influential anthology of German Expressionist poetry ever published and a most important German literary document. An immediate bestseller in 1919, banned by the Nazis in 1933, and republished after the Second World War, the collection - remarkable for its prescient visions of the horrors of war and the impersonality of the modern metropolis - remains in print today in Germany. The anthology contains 278 poems by 23 authors (including many of the best of the time, such as Heym and Trakl), most of whom died in the First World War orin political exile. It also contains some 40 pages of bio-bibliographical information on these authors.