Strange Bird: The Albatross Press & the Third Reich
Michele K. Troy discusses the Albatross Press. A precursor to Penguin, Albatross was literally a strange bird when it emerged in 1932: a complete cultural outsider to the Third Reich but an economic insider. Funded by British-Jewish interests, Albatross made affordable to continental readers reprints of modern English and American mysteries, biographies and edgier novels. Two of Albatross's three leaders were Jewish and its director was rumored to be working for British intelligence. Yet to exploit the lucrative German market, Albatross dug its roots into Germany. Albatross printed and sold its books in English from the heart of Hitler's Reich. Speaker Biography: Michele K. Troy is professor of English and directs honors in Hillyer College at the University of Hartford. She is the author of "Strange Bird: The Albatross Press and the Third Reich." Her earlier research explored how French and German critics framed Anglo-American modernism for continental audiences in the 1920s and '30s, as in her articles on James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence and a co-edited collection, "May Sinclair: Moving Towards the Modern." For transcript and more information, visit www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=8116
