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She had spurned his love

Sailer, Anton, singer, mimic, artist and murderer (born 1851). Autograph letter signed.

Stein (Krems), 19 Aug. 1888.

8vo. 4 pp. on a bifolium. With autograph envelope. In German.

To his friend and colleague, the Viennese singer Josef Pankraz Kock, about the crime for which he is incarcerated in Austria's notorious Stein prison, and requesting drawing and painting utensils: "You know me well enough to be able to judge that the terrible thing that happened was never my intention - for what should have induced me to wish for the death of that girl? Am I not now in my very prime and at an age at which all stood open to me, and now to blunder into this undreamt-of, terrible misfortune, and what advantage should I have had of it? She toyed with me outrageously, and when I found her out, and this was sufficiently confirmed to me by herself as well as by other persons, added to the vexation about her on that fateful evening, I had the unfortunate idea to frighten her in retaliation and to wound her slightly, so that she might not part from me without all punishment; unfortunately the matter ended so unhappily for both sides, and whose fault is it that we both clashed so violently? No one's but that of Miss Grün, who had first caused and provoked the trouble between us [...] Dear Mr Kock, regarding your kind offer to send me funds so as to improve my situation here in Stein, I can merely thank you, as I would not be able to make any use of such support, but would ask you to alleviate my lot by a different means, namely, as you yourself suggested, by a collection among friends and colleagues, the sum of which would allow you, as I have leave to draw and paint on Sundays, to obtain and send me a good drawing set, a pad of sketching paper, several brushes and good paint for watercolours, blue copying paper, 1 bottle of jet black ink, 1 stick of India, as well as the various necessary paraphernalia [...]" (transl.).

Because she had spurned his love, Anton Sailer, a native of Graz in Styria, had stabbed to death the 17-year-old singer Hermine Loisel-Guschelbauer outside Horak's public house on Vienna's Neubaugürtel in the night of 2 January 1887. Convicted for her murder, he was sentenced to ten years of hard labour and subsequent deportation.

Written on stationery of the Stein penal facility. Small tears along the folds.