Conrad Ferdinand Meyer’s ‘Footprints’ — Classic German Poetry Collection

Description

Alma Classics, paperback

Translated by: Anthony Mortimer

Publication Date: July 21, 2026

Publisher Marketing: 

First English translation of the most important Swiss poet of the nineteenth century. Now presented in a dual-language edition

The most important Swiss poet of the nineteenth century, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer is regarded as a crucial figure in the transition of German-language poetry from the Romanticism of Heine, Novalis and Eichendorff to the Symbolism of Rilke and Stefan George.

In poems that took years and sometimes decades to reach a final version, he worked within a limited set of themes and images – high mountains, gloomy lakes, sinister boats, nocturnal ghosts, reflected clouds, dark woods, golden sunsets, lightning, harvesting, lost lovers – to present his own symbolic world with a vividness and intensity that few poets can match. In these sensitive and accurate versions by acclaimed translator Anthony Mortimer, Meyer’s achievement is available to anglophone readers for the first time.

Explore more from our collection.