The title of Illuminations, 'but not the content,' is like that of a 1962 selection in German published by Suhrkamp (267). Containing essays included in the 1955 collection in German edited by Theodor Adorno. Translation from the German by Harry Zohn. 'First Edition' stated on copyright page. Throughout his work 'three concerns are always present… From first to last he was concerned with experience, with historical remembrance, and with art as the privileged medium of both' (Elland, 7). Edited by Hannah Arendt, this volume of ten essays features his writings on Kafka, Brecht, Baudelaire and Proust, and two of his most influential works: Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, which radically transformed our understanding of art, technology and culture, and Philosophy of History, where he wrote, in spring of 1940: 'Even the dead will not be safe from the enemy if he wins.' Philosophy of History remains 'one of the most important philosophical and political texts of the 20th century' (Lowy, 4). His work was nearly forgotten until a 1955 German anthology appeared, but it was not until 1968 that this first collection in English was published. Halted at the Spanish border in September 1940, Benjamin committed suicide. With many in America working to assure his passage to Spain, Benjamin entrusted friends with his 'papers most precious… Work of Art in the Art of Mechanical Reproduction… his copy of Philosophy of History' (Elland, Walter Benjamin, 2, 667). 'He was not only a surpassing critic and revolutionary theorist: he also left a substantial body of writing on the border between fiction, reportage, cultural analysis and memoir.' After fleeing Berlin in 1933 for France, in 1940 he again had to escape the Nazis. 'Benjamin occupies a singular, even unique, place in the intellectual and political panorama of the 20th century' (Lowy, Fire Alarm, 1). Octavo, original gray cloth, original dust jacket.įirst edition of the first collection in English of works by Benjamin, published two decades after he committed suicide to avoid capture by the Gestapo, edited by Hannah Arendt with her introduction and featuring ten key essays, including the pivotal Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction and Theses on the Philosophy of History, 'one of the most important philosophical and political texts of the 20th century.'

Edited and with an introduction by Hannah Arendt. 'EVEN THE DEAD WILL NOT BE SAFE FROM THE ENEMY IF HE WINS': FIRST EDITION OF ILLUMINATIONS, THE FIRST COLLECTION IN ENGLISH OF WORKS BY WALTER BENJAMINīENJAMIN, Walter.

Illuminations book cover