The “century of the child”

The “century of the child” editions in different countries
 

Ellen Key’s Barnets århundrade (Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag, 1900; preface dated Rome, 1 November 1900) quickly gained transnational significance in debates on childhood and education. A pivotal moment in its continental reception came with the sanctioned German edition, Das Jahrhundert des Kindes (Berlin: S. Fischer Verlag, 1902), translated from Swedish by Marie Franzos and published under the pseudonym Francis Maro. 

The German text became a bestseller, one of the most widely read pedagogical works in Germany at the opening of the twentieth century, stimulating extensive public debate and sustained media attention. Its influential chapters – on the child’s right to choose parents, the “soul murders” of prevailing school discipline, and the school of the future – shaped contemporary educational discourse and fuelled what contemporaries termed an ‘Ellen Key enthusiasm’. 

By 1911Das Jahrhundert des Kindes had undergone fifteen reprints (approximately 30,000 copies), together with two reprints of a shortened 1907 Volksausgabe (10,000 copies); subsequent reprints continued (16th in 1921; 17th in 1926, the year of Key’s death), with editions reappearing later in the century and beyond. The work generated prolific press coverage – some bibliographies record roughly two hundred reviews in the German press – and subsequent lecture tours (1905, 1906, 1908) that attracted thousands, especially women’s associations. Correspondence from German admirers reveals emotionally charged expressions of admiration and gratitude, and Key’s ideas circulated widely within urban Protestant and Jewish bourgeois milieus as well as among grassroots female readers; notable male admirers included Rainer Maria Rilke, and Stefan Zweig. 

The German imprint functioned as a conduit for further translations and national editions. Early translations include Danish (1902, Zelma Petersen) and Dutch (1904, J. P. Wesselink-van Rossum); Poland welcomed Stulecie dziecka (1904, translated from the German by Iza Moszczeńska). Italy embraced Key in 1905 with Maria Ettlinger Fano’s authorized Italian translation (Il secolo dei fanciulli, Fratelli Bocca; preface 15 Nov 1905) and a second Italian edition in 1921. The book’s circulation continued with Spanish (1906, Miguel Domenge), early Japanese renderings (1906 from German, later 1913 from English), Latvian (1907), French (1908, Flammarion), English (Putnam’s, New York & London, Feb. 1909, based on the German), and a Moscow edition (1910). Later twentieth century and global circulations gave rise Bulgarian (1939), Argentine (1945), Icelandic selections (1951), Hungarian (1976), Romanian (1978, from French), and a Croatian translation (2000).