Helene Scheu-Riesz

Scheu-Riesz, by Pauline Kruger Hamilton, 1914

Inspired by the cheap yet attractive booklets with short stories for children which had become popular in England, in 1905 Scheu-Riesz established a committee, along with Eugenie Hottmann and another activist, to organize the publication in German of similar little books for children at affordable prices in Austria. The beautifully illustrated collection focused on fairy tales and children's stories in German which cost far less than the poorly presented editions which were appearing in the shops for Christmas at horrendous prices. Most of the stories were rewritten by women with attractive new titles. Families were invited to purchase books for children, instead of or along with toys. Subscriptions were also available, allowing the committee to print large volumes of the stories for children's hospitals and humanitarian associations.[8] Scheu-Riesz saw books as a means of creating better understanding between peoples and improving international relationships.[7][16] Over the years, frequently traveling to England, she collected children's stories from various countries and assembled a collection of over 300 volumes, which also included French stories.[3] Under the influence of her friend Eugenie Schwarzwald, Scheu-Riesz became active in educational reform.[16] From the time of her teenage visit to London, she had tried to find a publisher interested in producing inexpensive, high-quality literature for children and young people.[7] She was able to realize these plans in 1923 when she founded her own publishing house, Sesam-Verlag.[6][17] The name was a play on the phrase "open sesame" from the tale "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" which magically opened the door (to knowledge), and its philanthropic mission took prevalence over earning a profit.[18] At the time, the two leading children's publishers were Gerlachs Jugendbücherei (Gerlach's Youth Library) and Konegens Kinderbücher (Konegen's Children's Books) and she took over the market share of Konegen.[17]

Scheu-Riesz campaigned for women's suffrage and worked in the international settlement movement. She wrote articles which appeared in the October 1913 issue of Zeitschrift für Frauen-Stimmrecht on both issues.[9][19] She urged women to join the Austrian Voting Rights Committee to fight for their rights as citizens.[19] After attending the 10th International Housing Congress in The Hague, she encouraged women to get involved in housing reforms. In the Netherlands, she reported she had met a woman housing inspector who focused on improving housing legislation and actively encouraged women and girls to participate in elevating the lives of apartment dwellers through social and artistic programs.[9] Scheu-Riesz linked housing initiatives and education as meeting points for new ideas and after World War I, was involved in a government housing program which constructed homes for 50,000 people.[20] She also pressed authorities to eliminate nationalist curricula from schools and focus on more practical learning.[21][22] In addition to updating the materials used in schools, she wrote articles urging that teaching staff and teaching methods should be modernized and professionalized, moving away from the military model, which had been in use prior to the war.[23]

Group photo of delegates at the 1921 WILPF Vienna Congress. Scheu-Riesz, standing first left, back row

After writing several poems about peace, Scheu-Riesz was invited to attend the 1915 Women at the Hague congress,[20] which resulted in the founding of the Committee of Women for Permanent Peace, subsequently known as the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).[24][25][Notes 1] She represented Austria at the organization's 1919 international congress in Zürich, at the 1921 congress in Vienna, and the 1924 congress in Washington, D.C.[27][28][29] Although not an official delegate, she also participated in the International Congress of Women, held in Vienna in July 1921.[30] In 1931, Scheu-Riesz became a vice-president of the Austrian chapter of the WILPF.[31] After moving to the United States, she continued to work with WILPF, through the North Carolina branch, giving lectures to women's groups.[20][32]

Scheu-Riesz began working as a journalist at an early age.[5] In 1910, she became editor at Konegens Kinderbücher (Konegens Children's Books).[6] While there, she implemented a series of world literature books for children. Initially the publications were made twice a year, but for the duration of World War I publication was sporadic.[16] Among her many translations were poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and numerous children's stories and fairy tales from China, Estonia, Great Britain, Japan, Spain, Sweden, and the United States, among other places.[33] Included in her over 200 works for children were "Japanische Volksmärchen" ("Japanese Folk Tales", 1912), "Die Abenteuer des Odysseus" ("The Adventures of Odysseus", 1919), "Nordische Sagen" ("Nordic Sagas", 1920), "Der Teufel und sein Lehrjunge und andere serbische Volksmärchen" ("The Devil and His Apprentice Boy and other Serbian Folk Tales", 1922), "Bulgarische Volksmärchen" ("Bulgarian Folk Tales", 1922), and "Chinesische Volksmärchen" ("Chinese Folk Tales", 1923), as well as translations of Alice in Wonderland, The Canterbury Tales, Don Quixote, Gulliver's Travels, and Pilgrim's Progress.[6][34] She translated several contemporary English plays in the 1920s, such as "At Mrs. Beam's" and "The Battle of Tindersley Down" into German.[33] Her first novel in English, Gretchen Discovers America (1934) was a romance about a German girl who came to the United States and found love in the interwar period.[6][34]

Among her influential translations was her version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Published in 1912, it was the second translation of the book into German and remained the dominant translation into the 1960s.[35] Despite a large number of reprints of her version, the genre of deliberate literary nonsense was virtually unknown in Germany and faced criticism as to whether it was appropriate for children.[36] In an effort to make the book more palatable for German readers, until the 1960s, translations attempted to make the book more akin to the more familiary genre of fairy tales.[36] In 1923, she produced the first translation of the sequel, Through the Looking-Glass. Her version attempted a faithful rendering of the text, however, the nonsensical text proved difficult to translate, as words such as "brillig", "chortle", and "slithy" were invented by Carroll.[37] Her translation, Alice im Spiegelland, was republished by Ulan Press in 2012,[38] and also in 2017 by Verlagshaus Jacoby & Stuart.[39]