A GERMAN READER FOR BEGINNERS. COMPILED BY BERNARD ROELKER, A. M. INSTRUCTOR IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY. SECOND REVISED AND IMPROVED EDITION. CAMBRIDGE: PUBLISHED BY JOHN BARTLETT, BOOKSELLER TO THE UNIVERSITY. Edue T 1718.54.752 HARD COLLEGE LIBRARY GIFT OF FORCE ARTHUR PLIMPTON Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, BY BERNARD ROELKER, In the Clerk's Office, of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. KING & BAIRD, Printers, No. 9 Sansom Str., Phila. PREFACE. THE object in compiling this. German Reader, as stated in the Preface to the first edition, was to give to those who begin the study of the German language, such selections from German literature as might prove easy enough for their first attempts at translating; and at the same time of sufficient interest in themselves. It was therefore thought best to take poems of acknowledged excellence, and prose pieces of a narrative character, presenting each a complete story, and to arrange them according to their respective difficulties, without attempting to classify them, either with reference to the periods of German literature to which their authors belong, or according to their subject and form. However desirable a book compiled on either of these plans would have been for the student of the history of German literature, it would not have been adapted to the purpose intended. In preparing this "second edition, the same plan of arrangement and selection has been retained, as in the first. The alterations made consist in omitting some of the pieces and substituting others in their places, and in changing their order, wherever it was thought that their respective difficulties required a change. The notes at the foot of each page, giving the derivations of irregular verbs and explaining idiomatic expressions, will also be found greatly increased. They have been omitted in subsequent parts of the book where the student's knowledge must be supposed sufficient without such assistance. Experience has convinced the compiler that German poetry is easier than prose for the beginner to translate; he would, therefore, propose to those using the book, to commence with reading the first thirty-three pages of poetry, and then to pass to the first pieces of prose to page 153. As the other pieces of prose will be found more difficult, it would be advisable, at this stage, to proceed with the poetry from the 33d page. That the student may know to what period the authors from whom selections have been made belong, an index has been added, in which the dates of the authors' births and deaths, together with a notice of their principal works, are given. |