Illustrated English translation of Hanns Heinz Ewers' decadent novel, Alraune, the second volume in his Frank Braun trilogy: The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Alraune, and Vampire. Inspired by medieval beliefs in the occult properties of the mandrake root (alraune), which was thought to grow under gallows from the fallen semen of hanged men, an arrogant student, Frank Braun, persuades his vicious uncle, Jacob ten Brinken, to create a child through artificial insemination using sperm from a condemned man and a prostitute as the mother. The child, Alraune, grows into an extremely beautiful but thoroughly perverse young woman with a mysterious power to subject others and to bring riches and ruination. Alraune was first published in German in 1911. This Birchgrove Press edition is based on an English translation published by The John Day Company, New York, in 1929 that was illustrated by Mahlon Blaine.

1927. Illustrated by Mahlon Blaine. Ewers varied and stormy literary career began in 1901 with the publication of a volume of rhymed satires entitled A Book of Fables, written in collaboration with Theodor Etzel. This led to an association with Ernst von Wolzogen and the formation of a literary vaudeville theater. The Sorcerer's Apprentice was his first novel.