Robert Walser: Kritische Ausgabe sämtlicher Drucke und Manuskripte, hg. v. Wolfram Groddeck und Barbara von Reibnitz. Bd. VI.1: Mikrogramme 1924/1925, hg. v. Angela Thut, Christian Walt und Wolfram Groddeck. Bd. VI.2: Mikrogramme 1925 (I), hg. v. Fabian Grossenbacher, Angela Thut und Christian Walt. Bd. VI.3: Mikrogramme 1925 (II), hg. v. dens. Stroemfeld, Basel, Frankfurt a. M. und Schwabe, Basel 2016, 2019, 2021, 405, 405, 408 S., 41, 41, 53 Faks., geb. im Schuber, 113, 113, 128 €.

Several volumes of the Critical Robert Walser Edition, which contain the "Mikrogramme", are discussed. The review introduces the new edition and explains how to work with it and what consequences the new textual basis has for interpretation. Walser's so-called "Mikrogramme" have been a source of fascination for researchers since they first became known in 1957. The notes in tiny writing invited all kinds of speculations about the psychological disposition of the author, and mystifications about the supposedly secret status of what was written down. Also an ethics and/or poetics 'of the small' are read out of them again and again. It is therefore all the more important to present them in a critical edition that first of all accept the microprint as the author's poetic mode of production and presents it neutrally. In this respect, the micrograms undoubtedly pose a special challenge. We have an author of world literary standing who, during his time in Bern, i.e. from 1921 to 1929, continuously wrote down his literary drafts in lowercase in pencil and then copied individual texts in ink in larger type and changed them in the process in preparation for publication. What has survived is a largely disorganized bundle of 526 micrographically written 'notes', in which only the 24 sheets with drafts of the so-called "Robber Novel" are connected to form a unit.