Another 1950s picture book about Austria

    Langewiescher Verlag, compiler not named. Österreich (1957) Franz Nabl, a prizewinning author, supplies a text summarising the landscape of the country. He writes a dense and convoluted prose, intended to be archly amusing. The pictures cover the same ground as Breidenstein’s book, but with more emphasis on architecture.
     The book is one in the series of Blaue Bücher, picture books that originated in 1902, and were intended to provide a concentrated summary of some topic, via a short but authoritative text and masses of pictures. The printing was excellent, since the books began as advertising for Langewiesche’s printing and publishing business. Their dark blue wrapper became their trademark. But the format was much imitated, and evolved into the standard tourist souvenir book that we love to bring home with us.
     A good overview of Austrian landscape and architectural monuments. Nabl laments the reduction of the empire into the small (but still world-class!) country illustrated in the photos. He’s a believer in the mystical connection between landscape and psyche. **