The German play by Dohm is adapted from the Spanish play Tu amor ó la muerta, by Larra; Larra's Spanish version, in turn, was a translation of the French play Être aimé ou mourir, by Scribe. The file contains a published copy of Dohm's play (Berlin: Eduard Bloch, n.d.; Eduard Bloch's Theater-Correspondenz Nr. 71), and 5 handwritten role books, for the following parts: Georg Werner, Bankier; Helene, seine Frau; Heinrich Oswald; Camilla von Heimburg, eine junge Witwe; and Eugen von Mansfeld (the complete character list of the play). The published copy, which dates from around 1876, is accompanied by the original envelope for Eduard Bloch's Theater-Correspondenz. The book contains a foreword from Dohm discussing in detail her source for the play (and the public controversy that apparently arose concerning that question at the time that it was first performed), as well as the relationship between Larra's play and Scribe's. Annotations on the page with the character list next to the character's names apparently indicate the relative weight of the roles. It is evident that the materials were prepared for the use of actors for rehearsal of the play, but to all appearances the role books were never actually used. In the context of the Learned Collection it can be said with fair certainty that the materials belonged to Theodor Bloch, who officially ran a theater lending library in Philadelphia from around 1880 to 1895. The title is listed in Bloch's catalog for his library (see box 34), but it is likely that he prepared them at an earlier point of his career in the German-language theater in Philadelphia, before he created a formal theater library (he was at first an actor, from at least 1874). The collection's holdings of theater newspapers and playbills contain no reference to this play.
