Wallenstein — a dramatic trilogy consisting of Wallensteins Lager (Wallenstein’s Camp), Die Piccolomini (The Piccolomini), and Wallensteins Tod (Wallenstein’s Death) — was published by J.G. Cotta in 1800. It is Schiller’s most ambitious work: over 7,500 lines of blank verse across three plays, requiring an entire evening (or two evenings) to perform, depicting the final months of Albrecht von Wallenstein, the supreme commander of the Imperial forces during the Thirty Years’ War, who was assassinated in 1634 after allegedly plotting to betray Emperor Ferdinand II.
The trilogy’s structure is progressive in scope: Wallenstein’s Camp (a one-act prologue in comic verse) presents the army — the physical power base that makes Wallenstein’s ambition possible; The Piccolomini introduces the personal relationships (Wallenstein’s friendship with Octavio Piccolomini, Octavio’s son Max’s love for Wallenstein’s daughter Thekla) that will be destroyed by political events; Wallenstein’s Death traces the general’s fall — from the moment he commits to treason through his betrayal by Octavio and his assassination.
Schiller’s Wallenstein is neither hero nor villain but a man destroyed by the gap between his self-image (master of fate, reader of stars, controller of events) and reality (a man whose power depends on forces he does not fully control). His fatal hesitation — he delays committing to rebellion for so long that his allies desert him and his enemies close in — is the tragedy: a man brilliant enough to conceive a grand design but too cautious (or too superstitious, or too honest) to execute it before his window closes.
The historical scope is immense: Schiller renders not merely Wallenstein’s personal drama but the entire political and military structure of the Thirty Years’ War — the exhausted armies, the cynical diplomacy, the religious hatreds, the devastated landscape of Central Europe after three decades of continuous warfare.
Collecting Wallenstein
First edition (J.G. Cotta, Tübingen, 1800): Three parts published together. In German.
Market values:
- First edition (1800, complete trilogy): $2,000–$8,000
- Coleridge’s English translation (1800): $500–$2,000
- Nineteenth-century editions: $30–$100
- Modern critical editions: $10–$30
The greatest dramatic trilogy in the German language. Coleridge’s translation (completed almost simultaneously with the German publication) is itself a significant literary achievement and a collector’s item.