Leon Kellner

Leon was born in Tarnów, Austrian Empire, the son of Jewish grocers Rafael and Lea Kellner. He began to learn the Hebrew alphabet at the age of three, and by five he entered a cheder to study the Torah and the Mishnah.[1]

In 1876 Kellner entered the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau, and in 1880 he enrolled at the University of Vienna to study Germanic languages with emphasis in English language and English literature.[2]

Kellner was awarded a PhD degree in 1883, and the title of his dissertation, published in 1885, was Zur Syntax des englischen Verbums, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung Shakespeares (The syntax of the English verb, with special consideration of Shakespeare). Kellner traveled to London in 1887 where the Early English Text Society invited him to translate William Caxton's Blanchardyn and Eglantine. Then in 1890 Kellner received his habilitation after publishing a thesis based on original research titled Caxton’s Syntax and Style. Kellner dedicated his translation of Caxton and his habilitation thesis to Frederick James Furnivall, founder of the Early English Text Society.[2]

After receiving his degree, Kellner taught in various schools until a scholarship sent him to London in 1887 to study at the British Museum. He returned to the University of Vienna in 1890 to lecture in English literature. In 1904 he became a professor of English at the University of Czernowitz, a post he held until 1914 when he fled Czernowitz at the beginning of World War I. After the war, Kellner served as a translator in the office of the President of the Austrian Republic and lectured at the Technical University of Vienna.[3]

During Kellner's lifetime, his work met with mixed sentiments among native English speakers. When Geschichte der Nordamerikanischen Literatur (American Literature) was translated into English by Julia Franklin in 1915, reviewer Ellen Fitz Gerald found many flaws in Kellner's judgments, notably his statement, "We look in vain...for an epic that glorifies...great [American] deeds."[4] In reviewing Restoring Shakespeare, John W. Draper wrote in 1926 that although Kellner's emendations were novel and ingenious, they were unnecessary.[5]

When philologist Jakob Schipper retired from the University of Vienna in 1913, Kellner was considered to be his successor. But the university left the post vacant rather than accept Kellner, an active proponent of Zionism.[2]

In 1896 Kellner became a friend and assistant to Theodor Herzl, a political activist and founder of the World Zionist Organization. Kellner also became active in the Jüdischnationale Partei or Jewish National Party. He contributed to Herzl's weekly publication, Die Welt,[6] under the name, Leo Rafael.[3]

Kellner published a two-volume collection of Herzl's writings in 1908, Theodor Herzl's Zionistische Schriften, and in 1920 he published Theodor Herzl's Lehrjahre.

• Anna Kellner, Leon Kellner: Sein Leben und sein Werk (Vienna 1936)
• Josef Fraenkel, The Jews of Vienna (London 1967)
• Ramon Pils, Leon Kellner zwischen Czernowitz und Wien, in: Thomas Brandstetter, Dirk Rupnow and Christina Wessely (eds.): Sachunterricht. Fundstücke aus der Wissenschaftsgeschichte (Vienna 2008) pp. 24–29.

• German Biography of Kellner
• Blanchardyn and Eglantine and Caxton's Syntax
• Hathi Trust Digital Library Kellner catalog