From the Bookshelf of Never too Late to Read Classics…

The Black Spider (Alma 101 Pages)

Jeremias Gotthelf,

H.M. Waidson (Translator)

Start date: May 1, 2020

Finish date: May 31, 2020

Discussion: Lesser Know/Wilderness Classics

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of -2 topics — 2,728 comments total

Lesser Know/Wilderness Classics

* 2025 Must Read Lesser Known Classics: Scheduled Reads
By Lesle , Appalachain Bibliophile · 72 posts · 193 views

last updated Sep 06, 2025 07:14AM

2025 August: Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
By Lesle , Appalachain Bibliophile · 36 posts · 28 views

last updated 15 hours, 58 min ago

What Members Thought

May 20, 2020 Manybooks rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: german-literature, fairy-tales-fantasy, classics, didactic, book-reviews, horror, too-creepy, misogyny

So yes, I did have a pretty massive and extensively comprehensive mandatory reading list for my second comprehensive exam (for my PhD in German literature) and of course and naturally, Jeremias Gotthelf's 1842 frame narrative horror novella Die schwarze Spinne (The Black Spider) was as a classic of 19th century Swiss German literature featured on said list and therefore also and absolutely required reading.

Now while I do readily admit that Die schwarze Spinne is definitely and in particular wit So yes, I did have a pretty massive and extensively comprehensive mandatory reading list for my second comprehensive exam (for my PhD in German literature) and of course and naturally, Jeremias Gotthelf's 1842 frame narrative horror novella Die schwarze Spinne (The Black Spider) was as a classic of 19th century Swiss German literature featured on said list and therefore also and absolutely required reading.

Now while I do readily admit that Die schwarze Spinne is definitely and in particular with regard to Jeremias Gotthelf's writing style and his modes of literary expression absolutely and definitely a shining example of Swiss Biedermeier (but that I actually and personally do tend to consider Biedermeier as in fact being simply and primarily a part of poetic realism and thus not all that much if at all a separate literary epoch), I for one have mostly extremely and personally uncomfortably negative reading experience memories of Die schwarze Spinne. For yes indeed, my perusal (in March of 1996) of Die schwarze Spinne, it did content and theme wise, with the gigantic spider that kills, with the images of the Devil, with its scenes of murder and mayhem, with multiple visions of horror and tragedy cause me far too many sleepless nights and some rather vivid and not at all pleasant nightmares. And thus, even if I can appreciate and indeed much enjoy Jeremias Gotthelf's penmanship as a craft, I really do equally mostly wish on an emotional and not at all keen on horror stories level that I never had to read Die schwarze Spinne in the first place, that this story had actually not been included in my comprehensive exam reading list (although I do of course and readily admit that Die schwarze Spinne is most definitely an interesting and a well organised and conceptualised tale, but yes, even just thinking about the plot and the gigantic spider last night and without actually even rereading Die schwarze Spinne, this was already more than sufficient for me to once again experience a similar nightmare as I did in 1996).

Therefore and my appreciation of Jeremias Gotthelf's writing talents quite notwithstanding, I cannot and will not claim that Die schwarze Spinne is in any manner a story that I find even somewhat, even remotely a personal reading pleasure (and I can also really only recommend it to and for those of you who have no issues with horror stories and actually enjoy them). But in fact and indeed, my final ranking of only one star for Die schwarze Spinne is not only because I have found the presented plot too uncanny and too creepy for my likes and for what I can emotionally handle, but also because on an intellectual level, I have equally found Jeremias Gotthelf's intense focus on collective guilt and his rather problematic misogyny (with women in Die schwarze Spinne in my humble opinion rather being seen by the author as the root of all evil and as the conduit and the plaything of and for the Devil) as something at best problematic and majorly uncomfortably troubling. ...more

17 likes · Like · see review

Dec 04, 2017 Anna Kļaviņa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2017, rakstnieks, historical-fiction, horror, europe

Great tale of horror of ruthless, unjust and vindictive omnipotent being called God.

3 likes · Like · see review

Sep 27, 2018 Lynn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A precursor to the weird fiction of H.P. Lovecraft et al., this atmospheric novella is both a Christian allegory and a horror classic that has aged relatively well despite being published more than 150 years ago. There are some genuinely horrifying moments amid the obvious religious symbolism, although epic battles between good and evil are pretty much a foregone conclusion in the genre, so it likely won't be a problem for most readers. Susan Bernofsky's translation, I found, was elegant without ...more

Like · see review