Editions
The German typescript (with “Lili Elbe Buch von Niels Hoyer” on the first page) was completed several months after Lili Elbe’s death in September 1931. The version transcribed here was Kurt Warnekros’s copy and was scanned for our use by the Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek (Swedish Labour Movement’s Archive and Library).
Fra Mand til Kvinde: Lili Elbes Bekendelser was translated from the German typescript and published by Hage & Clausens Forlag in Copenhagen in 1931. We originally worked with images of the copy in The Royal Library, Copenhagen, which puts “E. Wegener” on the cover’s spine. The version scanned and transcribed here is from the Harvard University Library, Cambridge, MA.
Ein Mensch wechselt sein Geschlecht: Eine Lebensbeichte is a different editing of the typescript from the Danish and was published in Dresden by Carl Reissner Verlag in 1932. This edition has “Lili Elbe” above the title where the author’s name would normally appear and “Aus Hinterlassenen Papieren Herausgegeben von Niels Hoyer” beneath the title.
Man into Woman: An Authentic Record of a Change of Sex was translated from the German edition and published in two variant editions in London (Jarrolds) and New York (E.P. Dutton) in 1933. The English-language editions include an introduction by British sexologist Norman Haire. The texts are identical but the illustrations and their captions differ.
All editions are available here in encoded transcriptions and in the Collation Studio. The Publication History presents an overview of the narrative’s production. An essay comparing the various illustrations and their captions can be found under Commentary.