The Gallows Songs

“Add to the season’s pleasures a generous helping from the writings of Christian Morgenstern (1871–1914), a man with a witty and playful mind ... full of verbal horseplay, fabulous animals and a host of inventions that would make the Smithsonian Institution drool in envy.”  —The New York Times

“The English translations match the feeling of the German originals to an astonishing degree.... The search for puns and symbols which would parallel the originals must have been a challenge of considerable degree.” 
—American-German Review

“Christian Morgenstern’s Gallows Songs, long lost to the non-German-speaking world as untranslatable, have now been rendered in English by Dr. Max Knight. He has created more than a translation ... he rethought the idea and formulation of Morgenstern in English.” —Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, Stuttgart 

“Knight’s translation shows why Morgenstern has become proverbial in his own tongue.” —The Los Angeles Times

“Obviously, Morgenstern’s Galgenlieder cannot be translated. This was reason enough for Max Knight to translate them—and in a masterly way. After reading the English version, it seems perfectly clear that Morgenstern could have been translated only in this fashion; for everything superbly done seems simple as soon as someone has done it.” 
—Aufbau, New York 

“Critical echo in the United States praises the informative introduction and masterly precision of Knight’s unstrained translation. Isolated [translation] attempts have been made since 1938; but it is only through Knight’s book that ‘the enfant terrible of German poetry’ now has the prospect of attaining broad popular appeal in America.”  —California Freie Presse