Po Bohu celý Váš… Korespondence Jakuba Demla a Josefa Floriana

Jakub Deml, Josef Florian, Daniela Iwashita (ed.), Eliška Müllerová (ed.), Šárka Kořínková (ed.), František Bui (ed.), Barbora Petrů (ed.)

The ninth volume of The Correspondence of Jakub Deml, entitled After God, All Yours…, presents a collection of the letters exchanged between two Czech writers and publishers, Jakub Deml (1878–1961) and Josef Florian (1873–1941). The collection of 436 letters or messages may be the most voluminous in The Correspondence of Jakub Deml series but even so, it clearly represents just a torso of a far wider letter exchange. Only 10 of Florian’s letters have been preserved from the first period of correspondence (1903–1911) as against 341 letters by Deml. We can only speak of a properly dialogical exchange beginning with the second period (1925–1935), represented by 38 letters by Florian mirrored by 46 letters by Deml. The volume is divided into two books. The first contains letters from the first period (1903–1911) during which Florian and Deml prepared, published and promoted almanacs and books in the Studium edition. The letters are accompanied by brief explanatory footnotes that provide translations of foreign passages and help identify various personages. The second book presents letters from the second period (1925–1935) as well as the accompanying literary studies by Daniela Iwashita and Michal Mocek. It also gathers various polemical texts, notes and invectives by Josef Florian and his collaborators that were aimed at Jakub Deml and published in the Stará Říše almanacs (Studium, Nova et Vetera, Kurs, Nejmenší revue, Archy), especially during those periods when no correspondence took place. The final section contains the editorial apparatus comprising extensive endnotes that give more detail on the artworks, publications and institutions mentioned in the letters, trace quotations to their sources and provide the required background. There is also a name index with basic biographical data, an editorial note and a detailed list of all available letters, their copies and reprints. The edition further contains a selective list of primary and secondary sources and the reproductions of seven of Deml’s handwritten dedications to Florian.