The British Reception of Hermann von Pückler-Muskau’s Semilasso Books

• Peter James Bowman

Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau wrote two travelogues using the pseudonym ‘Semilasso’. Vorletzter Weltgang von Semilasso (1835) describes a journey through Germany and France, while Semilasso in Afrika (1836) follows the traveller to Algeria and the Kingdom of Tunis. The first book was not translated into English and received scant, mainly negative critical attention in Great Britain. The second was anonymously translated by E. W. P. Sinnett and Edward Ryan as Semilasso in Africa and brought out in March 1837 by the prominent London publisher Richard Bentley. The English text is largely faithful to the German and often elegant, though there are minor excisions and errors and some concessions to the tastes of British readers. The book was reviewed in many newspapers and periodicals, and its jaunty, anecdotal style and diverse subject matter prompted both admiration and censure. Critics commented particularly on Pückler’s trademark sketches of scenery, his accounts of Roman and Punic remains, and the biographical and fictional narratives that stud his text. Semilasso in Africa went into a second edition in July 1837 and a third in 1839.