Felix Salten
Encyclopedia
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
and critic
Literary criticism
Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...
in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. His most famous work is Bambi
Bambi, A Life in the Woods
Bambi, a Life in the Woods, originally published in Austria as Bambi. Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde, is a 1923 Austrian novel written by Felix Salten and published by Paul Zsolnay Verlag...
(1923).
Life
Salten was born Siegmund Salzmann in Budapest, Hungary. When he was four weeks old, his family relocated to Vienna, Austria. Many Jews were immigrating into the city during the late 19th century because Vienna had granted full citizenshipCitizenship
Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...
to Jews in 1867.
When his father became bankrupt, the sixteen-year-old Salten had to quit school and begin working for an insurance agency. He also began submitting poems and book reviews to journals. He became part of the "Young Vienna
Young Vienna
Young Vienna was a society of fin de siècle writers who met in Vienna's Café Griensteidl and other nearby coffeehouses from 1890 until 1897...
" movement (Jung Wien) and soon received work as a full-time art and theater critic for Vienna's press (Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung, Zeit). In 1900 he published his first collection of short stories. In 1901 he initiated Vienna's first, short-lived literary cabaret (Jung-Wiener Theater Zum lieben Augustin).
He was soon publishing, on an average, one book a year, of plays, short stories, novels, travel books, and essay collections. He also wrote for nearly all the major newspapers of Vienna. In 1906 Salten went to Ullstein as an editor in chief of the B.Z. am Mittag and the Berliner Morgenpost, but relocated to Vienna some months later. He wrote also film scripts and librettos for operettas. In 1927 he became president of the Austrian P.E.N.
International PEN
PEN International , the worldwide association of writers, was founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere....
club as successor of Arthur Schnitzler
Arthur Schnitzler
Dr. Arthur Schnitzler was an Austrian author and dramatist.- Biography :Arthur Schnitzler, son of a prominent Hungarian-Jewish laryngologist Johann Schnitzler and Luise Markbreiter , was born in Praterstraße 16, Leopoldstadt, Vienna, in the Austro-Hungarian...
.
His most famous work is Bambi
Bambi, A Life in the Woods
Bambi, a Life in the Woods, originally published in Austria as Bambi. Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde, is a 1923 Austrian novel written by Felix Salten and published by Paul Zsolnay Verlag...
(1923). It was translated into English in 1928 and became a Book-of-the-Month Club success. In 1933, he sold the film rights to director Sidney Franklin
Sidney Franklin (director)
Sidney Franklin was an American film director and producer. His brother Chester Franklin also became a director during the silent film era best known for helming the early Technicolor film Toll of the Sea....
for only $1,000, and Franklin later transferred the rights to the Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
studios. Walt Disney released its movie based on Bambi in 1942.
Life in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
became perilous for a prominent Jew during the 1930s. Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
had Salten's books banned in 1936. Two years later, after Austria had become part of Germany, Salten moved to Zurich, Switzerland, where he lived until his death and where he died (buried Israelitischer Friedhof Unterer Friesenberg in Zurich).
He was married to the actress Ottilie Metzl (marriage in 1902), and had two children: Paul (b. 1903) and Anna-Katharina (b. 1904). He composed another book based on the character Bambi, titled Bambi's Children: The Story of a Forest Family (1939). His stories Perri
Perri (book)
Perri is a 1938 novel by the author of Bambi, Felix Salten. Its title character is an Eurasian red squirrel. Bambi makes a brief appearance in "Perri".In 1957, Walt Disney adapted it into a True Life Fantasy of the same name....
and The Hound of Florence inspired the Disney films Perri
Perri (film)
Perri is a 1957 film from Walt Disney Productions, based on Felix Salten's 1938 book of the same name. It was the company's fifth feature entry in their True Life Adventures series, and the only one to be labeled a True Life Fantasy...
(1957) and The Shaggy Dog
The Shaggy Dog (1959 film)
The Shaggy Dog is a black and white 1959 Walt Disney film about Wilby Daniels, a teenage boy who is transformed into an Old English Sheepdog by an enchanted ring of the Borgias. The film was based on the story, The Hound of Florence by Felix Salten...
(1959).
Salten is now considered to be the anonymous author of the erotic novel Josephine Mutzenbacher
Josephine Mutzenbacher
Josephine Mutzenbacher – The Life Story of a Viennese Whore, as Told by Herself is an erotic novel first published anonymously in Vienna, Austria in 1906...
(1906), the fictional autobiography of a Vienna prostitute.
Selected works
- Der Gemeine (1899)
- Josephine MutzenbacherJosephine MutzenbacherJosephine Mutzenbacher – The Life Story of a Viennese Whore, as Told by Herself is an erotic novel first published anonymously in Vienna, Austria in 1906...
(1906) - in German: Josefine Mutzenbacher, die Geschichte einer Wienerischen Dirne von ihr selbst erzählt - Herr Wenzel auf Rehberg und sein Knecht Kaspar Dinckel (1907)
- Olga Frohgemuth (1910)
- Der Wurstelprater (1911)
- Das Burgtheater (1922)
- Der Hund von Florenz (1923)
- Bambi, A Life in the WoodsBambi, A Life in the WoodsBambi, a Life in the Woods, originally published in Austria as Bambi. Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde, is a 1923 Austrian novel written by Felix Salten and published by Paul Zsolnay Verlag...
(1923) - Neue Menschen auf alter Erde. Eine Palästinafahrt (1925)
- Martin Overbeck. Der Roman eines reichen jungen Mannes (1927)
- Animal Novels: 15 Rabbits (1929)
- 5 Minuten Amerika (1931)
- Florian the Emperor's Horse (1933)
- PerriPerri (book)Perri is a 1938 novel by the author of Bambi, Felix Salten. Its title character is an Eurasian red squirrel. Bambi makes a brief appearance in "Perri".In 1957, Walt Disney adapted it into a True Life Fantasy of the same name....
(1938) - Bambi's ChildrenBambi's ChildrenBambi's Children, The Story of a Forest Family, originally titled Bambis Kinder, eine Familie im Walde, is a German Children's novel written by Felix Salten as a sequel to his successful work Bambi, A Life in the Woods. The sequel follows the lives of the deer Bambi's twin fawns as they grow from...
(1939) - Djibi, the Little Cat (1945)
Further reading
- Ernst Seibert, Susanne Blumesberger (ed): Felix Salten – der unbekannte Bekannte, Wien 2006, ISBN 3-7069-0368-7.
External links
- Works by or about Felix Salten at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
(scanned books original editions color illustrated)