Simple Narrative of the Terrible Fall of the Schrofenberg and the

Dachauer, Sebastian, 1778-1863Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 1.8

Word count: 28K words
Chapters: 3

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Einfache Erzählung von dem schrecklichen Absturze des Schrofenberges und derAuthor: Dachauer, Sebastian, 1778-1863,Language: German, Class: QE: Science: Geology, Release Date: Jun 13, 2013

Editor's review

This is a nineteenth-century German documentary pamphlet in which the author, Sebastian Dachauer, recounts in plain style a terrible mountain accident on the Schrofenberg, along with its geology, topography, and mountain environment. The text is short but combines the value of disaster narrative, local memory, and early geological observation: it presents both the terror and rescue from the perspective of those involved and preserves the era's ways of understanding mountain bodies, rock strata, and weather. The language is old German, with sentence patterns and orthography different from today's standard German, making it suitable as practice material for advanced German reading or for researchers of German documents encountering original texts. Readers interested in the history of mountain disasters, the local history of the Alpine region, and German documentary literature can read it as a short historical source; general readers should first learn the background before entering the text.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Upper-level German majors training in reading old German texts
History enthusiasts studying the history of mountain disasters and local disaster narratives
Readers interested in local documents of the Alpine region
Self-learners who want to practice intensive German reading with a short original document

Not a good fit for

General readers who know no German and hope to read a Chinese translation
Professional researchers expecting systematic modern geological discussion
Readers who prefer light stories and lack patience for old German texts

Reading tips

Read through once to grasp the course of the accident, then check vocabulary and old spellings paragraph by paragraph
Use maps or geographical materials to locate the Schrofenberg and build a sense of space
Record disaster narrative and contemporary geological understanding separately for later comparison
If German is limited, read a modern German overview first, then return to the original

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book fiction or documentary writing?

Judging from the title and the author's identity, it is a documentary narrative of a mountain accident on the Schrofenberg, not a fictional novel. The text clearly bears the mark of firsthand experience or retelling, focusing on the course of events and the mountain environment; it should be treated as a historical source rather than a literary work.

Can I read it if my German is only average?

The text is nineteenth-century German, and its spelling and sentence patterns differ from today's standard German, which beginners will find difficult. It is advisable to have intermediate or higher German reading ability, or to use a dictionary and a modern overview to understand the content first, then read the original intensively paragraph by paragraph.

Is it a geological monograph?

The materials classify it under geology, but its length and style are closer to disaster documentary combined with local observation rather than a systematic geological treatise. Readers can see the era's understanding of mountains and disasters, but it should not be used as a modern geological reference.

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About the author

Dachauer, Sebastian, 1778-1863 Author · 1778–1863

Sebastian Dachauer (1778–1863) is a German-language author whose life is very sparsely documented; publicly available sources give no clear account of his birthplace, occupation, or education. What can be confirmed is that he was born in 1778 and died in 1863, and that our collection holds only one work by him: Einfache Erzählung von dem schrecklichen Absturze des Schrofenberges und der… (A Simple Narrative of the Terrible Collapse of the Schrofenberg and of the…). Judging from its title and style, the work is a documentary narrative that recounts a landslide disaster in plain, unadorned language, focusing on the course and consequences of the event in the manner of popular chronicle writing. Such accounts have some historical and folkloric value within contemporary Alpine writings on natural calamities, but because the author's life and circumstances remain obscure, his overall influence awaits further study.