Böcker av Karel Jaromir Erben

This book combines the traditional Slavic tale "We Three Brothers" by Karel Jaromír Erben with illustrative photographs and drawings by Jan Jedlicka. The story is just one of dozens collected and retold by Czech folklorist and poet Erben (1811-70) and is a cautionary tale of three young brothers, sons of a peasant who leave home to find their way in the world, only to meet a mysterious man with a limp who seals their unfortunate fates. Jedlicka visualizes the story in muted black-and-white images of a landscape of empty hills and rocky outcrops through which we imagine the brothers traveling. These he complements with more whimsical drawings of the characters of the tale: the brothers and their father, the limping man, a peddler and magistrate. The result is an unconventional modernization of a little-known tale, whose charm and moral still have an uncanny resonance today.Sprachen: Deutsch, Englisch, Tschechisch

Erben compiled and wrote A Bouquet based on his studies of Slavic folklore. First published in 1853, it is dotted with murder and mayhem: graves opening and the dead walking the earth, the animate becoming the inanimate and vice versa, ogres and monsters of lake and wood, human transformations reminiscent of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Written as ballads, Marcela Sulak's new translation perfectly captures their cadence and rhythm in an English that is fresh and energetic. Through the years A Bouquet has come to be regarded as a masterpiece and wellspring of inspiration to artists of all stripes, including AntonaÂ-n DvoUak, who composed a series of symphonic poems to some of these tales. Of the many illustrators who have contributed to the various editions that have appeared over the past century and a half, Alen Divi 's artwork is generally considered the most powerful. This edition also includes Erben's own notes explaining the origins of many of these tales.