Holdings & Collections
Established from Fontane’s literary estate, the Theodor Fontane Archive has a comprehensive collection of manuscripts, documents and realia. It is continuously augmented through acquisitions and expanded through reception testimonials. Moreover we maintain an expanding library with nearly all literature by and about Fontane. Collections, loans as well as estates and bequests out of Fontane’s social sphere and important Fontane researchers complete our holdings.
All holdings are available to you within the framework of our user services, for research purposes. Moreover, we will be making the completely digitized inventory of manuscripts gradually available in our Digital Collection of manuscripts. The research of primary and secondary literature by and about Fontane is possible with the Fontane Bibliography Online by Wolfgang Rasch.
Image: Ernst KazcynskiManuscripts
The archive’s collection of manuscripts originated from Theodor Fontane’s estate, insofar as it could be acquired by the »Brandenburgische Provinzialverwaltung« in 1935. It includes manuscripts of works, records, and life testimonies, such as diaries and household books. It further contains the world’s most comprehensive collection of letters by and to Fontane, including numerous »Umkreisbriefe« (circuitous letters) from his milieu. Additionally, we possess some 12,000 pages of transcripts and copies of manuscripts, some of whose originals have disappeared.
Image: TFADigital Collection of Manuscripts
The Theodor Fontane Archive has digitized all of its manuscripts. In the Digital Collection of Manuscripts, we are successively putting these holdings online.
Image: Karla FritzeLibrary
The collection profile of the library of the Theodor Fontane Archive includes all editions of Theodor Fontane’s works, translations, film adaptations and musical renderings of the works, reception testimonies as well as all research literature on Fontane and his work. In addition to monographs, anthologies, essays, and dissertations, we also collect gray literature such as offprints, association notices, institute publications, private prints, scipts, TV and radio manuscripts, unpublished research papers, and so on.
Image: TFAFontane Bibliography Online
In 2006, the Fontane Bibliography compiled by Wolfgang Rasch was published in 3 volumes. The updated and expanded bibliography has been available as an online database since 2019.