MEYER, Kuno. & STERN, L.C. Et al. Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie [A MAJOR WORK ON THE STUDY OF EARLY IRISH]

Thirteen volumes. Halle: Max Niemeyer. London: Williams & Norgate. New York: Stechert, 1897/1921. Contemporary half full purple morocco on purple marbled boards, title in gilt on matching morocco label on spine. All edges purple. A very good copy. Rare.

The Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie is an academic journal of Celtic studies, which was established in 1897 by the German scholars Kuno Meyer and Ludwig Christian Stern. It was the first journal devoted exclusively to Celtic languages and literature and is the oldest significant journal of Celtic studies still in existence today. The emphasis is on (early) Irish language and literature and Continental Celtic languages, but other aspects of Celtic philology and literature (including modern literature) also receive attention.

Kuno Meyer (1858-1919), Celtic scholar, editor and translator, was born in Hamburg. He left school at fifteen and spent two years in Edinburgh during which time he encountered spoken Gaelic in Arran. He studied Celtic in Leipzig under Ernst Windisch, and devoted himself to “the fascinating study of the vernacular literature of ancient Ireland, the earliest voice from the dawn of West European civilisation.” In 1896 he founded in Germany „Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie‟, which became a major influence on Celtic learning. Due to the neglect of the Irish language by the learned institutions and the lack of trained scholars to edit manuscripts in Dublin libraries, he founded a school of Irish learning to train students in scholarly methods and philology, predecessor of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Apart from Stern and Meyer, previous editors include Julius Pokorny, Ludwig Mühlhausen, Rudolf Thurneysen, Rudolf Hertz, Heinrich Wagner, Hans Hartmann, and Karl Horst Schmidt. The current editors-in-chief are Jürgen Uhlich, Torsten Meißner and Bernhard Maier.