Viereck, George S
Entry updated 1 December 2024. Tagged: Author.
(1884-1962) German-born author, in US from 1896, naturalized 1910; he was a close friend of Nicola Tesla. Though well known between the Wars as an apologist for defeated Germany, as in The Kaiser on Trial (1937), his views on Hitler were considerably more guarded, though deeply offensive in their anti-semitism. On his refusal to register as a German lobbyist or agent in World War Two he was imprisoned, gaining his release only in 1947. His first fiction of interest was The House of the Vampire (1907), a psychosexual Vampire fantasy in a late-Decadent style shared by writers like Hanns Heinz Ewers, but he is best remembered for The Three Immortals trilogy (see Wandering Jew), all with Paul Eldridge: My First Two Thousand Years: The Autobiography of the Wandering Jew (1928; cut 1956), Salome: The Wandering Jewess (1930; cut vt Salome: My First 2000 Years of Love 1954) and The Invincible Adam (1932). The immortal protagonists (see Immortality) – the third being a vigorous young masculine figure, Kotikokura, who represents Natural Man – intermingle their adventures through time, and, at times egregiously, symbolize mankind's striving after reality and love. The plot of Prince Pax (1933) with Paul Eldridge conveys similar ironies about the species: a Ruritanian ruler acquires a high-tech Weapon and uses it to commit a surly world to an enforced peace. Didactic and subversively erotic anecdotes about the true nature and history of humanity surface throughout all four collaborative books.
Viereck's late works were various. All Things Human (1948) as by Stuart Benton mixes together Vampires and monkey glands (see Serge Voronoff), and invokes Sherlock Holmes. His final novel is a kind of pendant to his earlier disquisitional tales; Gloria (1952; vt The Nude in the Mirror 1953), is ostensibly an espionage thriller set on an ocean liner, but the female spy, whose name is Stella Del Mar, involved turns out to be, almost certainly, the sea-born goddess of love. [JC]
see also: Adam and Eve; Origin of Man.
George Sylvester Viereck
born Munich, Germany: 31 December 1884
died Holyoake, Massachusetts: 18 March 1962
works
series
The Three Immortals
- My First Two Thousand Years: The Autobiography of the Wandering Jew (New York: Macauley, 1928) with Paul Eldridge [The Three Immortals: hb/]
- Salome: The Wandering Jewess (New York: Horace Liveright, 1930) with Paul Eldridge [The Three Immortals: hb/]
- Salome: My First 2000 Years of Love (New York: Ace Books, 1954) with Paul Eldridge [cut vt of the above: The Three Immortals: pb/George Geygan]
- The Invincible Adam (New York: Horace Liveright, 1932) with Paul Eldridge [The Three Immortals: hb/Remour Ponsaino]
individual titles
- The House of the Vampire (New York: Moffat, Yard and Company/The Premier Press, 1907) [hb/]
- Prince Pax (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1933) with Paul Eldridge [hb/]
- All Things Human (New York: Sheridan House, 1948) as by Stuart Benton [hb/]
- Gloria (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1952) [hb/uncredited]
- The Nude in the Mirror (New York: The Woodford Press, 1953) [vt of the above: hb/]
about the author
- Neil M Johnson. George Sylvester Viereck: German-American Propagandist (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1972) [nonfiction: hb/]
- Elmer Gertz. Odyssey of a Barbarian: The Biography of George Sylvester Viereck (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1978) [nonfiction: hb/]
links
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