Franz Blei

Franz Blei (1871–1942) was an Austrian writer, translator, editor, and literary critic. He wrote essays, plays, and poetry, and translated works from English and French, including authors such as Baudelaire, Hawthorne, and Wilde. He is best known for The Great Bestiary of German Literature, in which he portrayed major authors as more or less exotic animals in ironic sketches. Blei also edited journals and literary texts. In the 1930s, he emigrated for political reasons and, after several stages in Europe, eventually reached the United States.