Overview
This volume is formed from a collection of memoirs discovered in 1898 at the University of Munich in Bavaria. Sebastian Pierre Drechsler was a student and eventually lecturer at Ingolstadt University between 1783 – 1800, before the faculty was closed down. He later went on to become Professor and then Director of History at Munich University until he retired in 1833. It is understood that the original memoirs were dictated by the scholar on his deathbed (circa 1852) and that he had not wanted them to come to the public’s attention for ‘some time’ after he died so as not to besmirch his fine reputation achieved after many years working within academe. He was on record to have made claim that they would be valuable ‘To those in the future who are already illuminated, or are ready to come into the light.’ It should be noted that the transcript was dictated to an Englishman, a court stenographer by trade, who was not fluent in the Bavarian tongue but the far-sighted Professor had understood that his scribe’s natural dialect was fast becoming the international language of the world and so by means of this translation would secure the text’s widest readership when it eventually saw the light of day. This detail and the fact that it is a vocal record would explain the sound effects, British measurements, occasional vernacular and the constant personal observations of a humorous nature.
A. Jones Editor Necromancer Press. 1913