Robert Musil - Diaries : Robert Musil 1899-1942

The present work is a selection from Robert Musil, Tagebcher, edited by Adolf Fris (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1976). I am deeply indebted to Adolf Fris for his help in the selection and allowing me to make use of the apparatus of his edition for this English translation -- this use is so extensive that I have not acknowledged each separate reference to his notes. (Occasionally, in various notes I refer to Fris's edition as follows: Heft 4, 23 [Notebook 4, p. 23].)

Editorial conventions used in this translation are broadly the same as those used in the German edition:

Each new diary entry begins flush at the left-hand margin.

Paragraphs within entries are indented.

Editorial annotations appear in square brackets thus: A list of all the major points of abridgment in the text appears in the List of Omissions at the back of this edition.

Musil's own brackets (to amend entries during composition or at a later date) are represented by open and close parentheses thus: (...).

Musil's additions and amendments to his entries -- he frequently returned to his diaries for ideas and inspiration and sometimes corrected or otherwise commented on his original text -- are indicated by curly brackets thus: {... }.

Very occasionally a word or phrase which Musil deleted has been retained in the translation and is enclosed in arrow brackets thus: <... > .

A number of Musil's eccentricities in punctuation have been preserved from the Fris edition, three periods where the American reader would expect four, two periods where usage dictates three, and a varying scheme of italicization.

Since I refer frequently to Musil major work, Der Mann obne Eigenschaften, edited by Adolf Fris (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1978), this edition appears abbreviated throughout as MoE. A new translation of this

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novel, The Man without Qualities, edited by Burton Pike, translated by Sophie Wilkins and Burton Pike ( New York: Knopf, 1995), is referred to throughout as MwQ. I would like to thank Burton Pike for his help and encouragement with the preparation of this translation of Musil Diaries.

I also would like to acknowledge the help and advice I received from colleagues in England and Germany, particularly the following: at the Arbeitsstelle filr Robert-Musil-Forschung at the University of the Saar, Professor Marie-Louise Roth and Professor Pierre Behar, Dr. Annette Daigger, Korinna Teschner, Patrik Feltes, and Silvia Bonacchi; at Lancaster University, Graham Bartram, David Craig, and Keith Hanley. My mother has undertaken most of the word-processing of this translation from the first manuscripts to the final draft and kept a watchful classicist's eye on my use of English!