[Ads-l] Antedating of "Kafkaesque"

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

I came across Stephen’s 1939 citation for Kafkaesque (Kafa-esque)
after I carefully collected two citations written by book reviewer
John Mair in 1940. Maybe these citations will be useful to someone.

Date: April 27, 1940
Periodical: The New Statesman and Nation
Periodical Location: London, England
Article: New Novels (Review of six novels including "Alexei the
Gangster" by Yuri Herman)
Author: John Mair
Start Page 564, Quote Page 565
Database: Internet Archive

[Begin excerpt]
He finds it impossible even to buy a drink without meeting detectives,
or sleep in a peasant's cottage without running into a policeman. Not
unnaturally, this drives him into a Kafkaesque persecution mania of
such dimensions as to render him quite unfit for crime and make even
constables and peasant girls address him as “You neurotic!”
[End excerpt]

Date: June 1, 1940
Periodical: The New Statesman and Nation
Periodical Location: London, England
Article: New Novels (Review of four novels including "Cécile Among
Pasquiers" by George Duhamel
Author: John Mair
Start Page 704, Quote Page 706, Column 1
Database: Internet Archive

[Begin excerpt]
Two of the novels included in Cécile (the story of a conflict between
two professors, and a Kafkaesque account of an innocent man's
persecution by the press) have no true connection with the saga other
than their narration by a member of the family, and seem, like some of
the Pickwick cycle, to have been inserted merely so as to be sponsored
by an established success.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Sun, Aug 18, 2024 at 3:11 PM ADSGarson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> A word worth exploring. Nice work, Fred.
> It is difficult trying to keep track of previous citations. Back in
> September 2013 Stephen Goranson posted a 1939 citation for
> Kafka-esque. Here is a link:
>
> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2013-September/128554.html
>
> On Sun, Aug 18, 2024 at 9:02 AM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Kafkaesque (OED 1947)
> >
> > 1943 Observer 27 June 3/5 (Newspapers.com)
> >
> > The best prose efforts are some sardonic studies of life in the Fire Service ... an impressive Kafkaesque allegory by another fireman, William Sansom.
> >
> > Fred Shapiro
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org