Collected works. Vol. VIII. The literary œuvre. Edited by Friedrich Vollhardt and Udo Roth. (Gesammelte Werke. Band VIII: Literarisches Werk.) (English) Zbl 1227.01042

Hausdorff, Felix

Berlin: Springer (ISBN 978-3-540-77758-8/hbk; 978-3-540-77759-5/ebook). xx, 878 p. (2010).

Vol. VIII of the Collected Works of F.Hausdorff is devoted to his literary œuvre published under the pseudonym Paul Mongré. The material is organized in three parts. Part I contains his lyrics, above all a volume of poems published in 1900 under title “Ekstasen” (Ecstasies). Among the poems one can find the “Very Difficult Acrostic for the Toeplitz Couple” (1935). Otto Toeplitz had been Hausdorff’s colleague at the Mathematics Department of the University of Bonn. The acrostic refers to the Toeplitz couple’s activities for the Jewish community after Toeplitz dismissal from his office forced by the National Socialists. The line’s initials result in the words “Otto Erna Toeplitz”.
Hausdorff’s essays, published in the leading literary journals of his time, are collected in Part II. His three essays on the philosophy of Nietzsche are omitted. They had already been published in Vol.VII of the Collected Works, devoted to Hausdorff’s philosophical work.
In Part III the stage play “Der Arzt seiner Ehre” (The Physician of his Honesty) is edited, first published in 1904. The play was performed more than 300 times in more than 30 towns.
This volume follows, like the other volumes, highest editorial standards. It is opened with a comprehensive introduction and a complete bibliography of Hausdorff’s writings. Each item is commented extensively. The comments give the context of origination of the pieces, they explain concepts and quotes and other allusions which can be found in the learned texts of Mongré/Hausdorff which are, however, not familiar to the modern reader.

Reviewer: Volker Peckhaus (Paderborn)

MSC:

01A75	Collected or selected works; reprintings or translations of classics
00A30	Philosophy of mathematics
01A60	History of mathematics in the 20th century

Keywords:

Paul Mongré; literature

Citations:

Zbl 1095.01012