(Find me at 50 Watts Books.)

I discovered the publisher Seven Seas Books after purchasing their edition of Johannes R. Becher's Farewell. I was surprised to find the address given for Seven Seas on the copyright page: "Berlin / DDR 108 Berlin" -- DDR meaning Deutsche Demokratische Republik, aka the German Democratic Republic, aka East Germany. The "tagline" given for the press is "A Collection of Works in the English Language." After google searches failed to turn up any real information on the press, I decided to begin compiling a list of their English-language publications. See below.

In his essay "American Literature in Germany and its Reception in the Political Context of the Postwar Years" (translated by Sally E. Robertson in the anthology The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War, 1945-1990: A Handbook), Martin Meyer writes that, in 1946, publishers began returning to "the tradition of original English-language literature in Germany that Tauchnitz in Leipzig had established in the nineteenth century and Albatross in Hamburg carried on in 1932." [note to self: look up what types of books these were] Meyer continues: "There were similar efforts in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), where the private Paul List publishing house in Leipzig brought out paperback books in their original language (Panther Books, 1953 - 57). Beginning in 1957, this series continued in East Berlin as the Seven Seas Books imprint, which also served as a forum for publishing East German writings in English translation."

Meyer's essay touches on many bits of literary history. He lists participants of the First International Congress of Writers for the Defense of Culture, organized by Becher in 1935--Andre Gide, Andre Malraux, E. M. Forster, Aldous Huxley, Bertolt Brecht, Heinrich Mann, Boris Pasternak, Theodore Dreiser. He tells how the CIA gave money to publishers between the end of the war and 1967 (initially under a program called "psychological operations") and that Becher spoke out against a manifesto by Koestler, calling participants in the Congress for Cultural Freedom "stooges of the warmongers" and "gangsters in literary guise."

Anyway, here's the list of publications from Seven Seas Books. I ran a series title search at the Library of Congress (loc.gov). About fifty titles came up, published between and 1958 and 1980. I augmented the titles in the LOC with additional research (these titles have an asterisk, and I'm not 100% firm on their publication details).

I'd like to know more about Seven Seas Books' fascinating publishing program and the publishers/editors behind it. Please get in touch if you can point me in more directions.

--Apitz, Bruno, Naked Among Wolves [trans. Edith Anderson] (1960, again in 1967)
--Aptheker, Herbert, And Why Not Every Man? The Story of the Fight Against Negro Slavery (1960)
--Ashraf, Mary, ed, Political Verse and Song from Britain and Ireland (1974)
--Becher, Johannes Robert, Farewell [trans. Joan Becker] (1970)
--*Belfrage, Cedric, My Master Columbus (1964)
--*Berriault, Gina, The Descent (1963)
--Bessie, Alvah, Inquisition in Eden (1967)
--*Bloom, Harry, Transvaal Episode (1959)
--Bobrowski, Johannes, I Taste Bitterness [trans. Marc Linder] (1970)
--Bontemps, Arna, Black Thunder (1964)
--*Brezan, Jurij, The Fallow Years [trans. (Joan?) Becker] (1963)
--Burchett, Wilfred, Come East, Young Man (1962)
--Burchett, Wilfred, Mekong Upstream: A Visit to Laos and Cambodia (1959)
--Callow, Philip, Native Ground (1967)
--Calthorpe, Mena, The Dyehouse (1964)
--Carim, Enver, Golden City (1970)
--Caudwell, Christopher, Illusion and Reality (1973)
--*Chevalier, Haakon, The Man Who Would be God (1963)
--*Clarke, John Hendrik, Harlem U.S.A.: The Story of a City (1971)
--*Cooper, James Fenimore, Short Stories from his Novels (1980)
--Cusack, Dymphna, Say No To Death, An Unforgettable Love Story Set in Oz (1959)
--*Dickens, Charles, Three Christmas Tales (1958)
--Deicke, Gunther, ed, Time For Dreams: Poetry from the German Democratic Republic [trans. Jack Mitchell] (1976)
--Du Bois, W. E. B., John Brown (1974)
--Eisler, Hanns, Rebel in Music: Selected Writings [trans. Marjorie Meyer] (1978)
--*Foner, Philip S., Mark Twain, Social Critic (1966)
--*Freehill, Norman, Where do you Want to Go? China! What do you Want to Know? All About It! (1959)
--Fuhmann, Franz, Car with the Yellow Star; Fourteen Days out of Two Decades [trans Joan Becker] (1968)
--Fuhmann, Franz, Twenty-two days: or, Half a lifetime (1980)
--Furnberg, Louis, Conversations in the Night: Three Works [trans. Joan Becker] (1969)
--*Gelbin, Gertrude, Song to Generations [Fragments from British and American Classics: Shakespeare, Milton, Jefferson, Robert, Burns, Melville, Douglass, Dickens, Twain]
--*Greaves, C. Desmond, The Life and Times of James Connolly (1961)
--*Leslie Haylen, Big Red (1967)
--*Herausgeber, ?, Spooks in Your Cupboard [A Collection of Ghost Stories by Nineteenth Century British Authors incl. Wilkie Collins; Charles Dickens; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Joseph Sheridan le Fanu; Edward Bulwer-Lytton; Robert Louis Stevenson; Sir Walter Scott; H. G. Wells; Oscar Wilde] (1963)
--*Herbert, Xavier, Seven Emus (1961)
--*Hermlin, Stephan, City on the Hill, A Quart (?) in Prose (date?)
--*Hewett, Dorothy, Bobbin Up (1961)
--Heym, Stefan, Cannibals and Other Stories (1958)
--*Heym, Stefan, The Glasenapp Case (date?)
--Heym, Stefan, Goldsborough (1966)
--Heym, Stefan, Lenz Papers (1968)
--Ivens, Joris, Camera and I (1969)
--*Jackson, T. A., Ireland Her Own: An Outline History of the Irish Struggle for National Freedom and Independence (1970)
--Jagan, Cheddi, West on Trial : The Fight for Guyana's Freedom (1975, reprint 1980)
--*Kaiser, Ernest, A Freedomsways Reader: Afro American In the Seventies (1977)
--Kantor, James, Healthy Grave (1969)
--Kaufmann, Walter, American Encounter (1966)
--*Kaufmann, Walter, Beyond the Green World of Childhood (1972)
--La Guma, Alex, Stone-Country (1967)
--*Lawrence, Lars, Morning Noon and Night, A Novel (1958)
--*LeSueur, Meridel, Salute to Spring (1977) ***but see "Ossietzky" below
--Lewis, Reba, Brahman and the Belle (1968)
--Lieber, Maxim, ed (??), Ghosts, Ghouls, and Nuisances (1959)
--Lowenfels, Walter, Poets of Today: A New American Anthology (1966)
--*Marshall, Alan, I Can Jump Puddles (1966)
--Morris, Edna, Seeds of Hiroshima (1966)
--*Morris, William, A Dream of John Ball, A King's Message (1958)
--Morris, William, The Political Writings of William Morris (1973)
--Morris, William, Three Works (1968)
--Morton, A. L., Freedom in Arms: A Selection of Leveller Writings (1975)
--Morton, A. L., Life and Ideas of Robert Owen (1969)
--Morton, A. L., People's History of England (1965)
--*Mowat, Farley, People of the Deer (1962)
--Mphahlele, Ezekiel, Down Second Avenue (1962)
--Myers, Henry, Winner of World War III (1966)
--Nowotny, Joachim, Labyrinth Without Fear [trans. John Peet] (1970)
--Ossietzky, Carl von, The Stolen Republic. Salute to Spring (1971) ***see LeSueur above
--Otto, Herbert, Time of the Storks [trans. Eva Wulff] (1969)
--*Petersen, Hans, ed, Sea Tales of the Seven Seas [Conrad, Crane, London, Melville, Poe, Scoresby, Stockton] (1962)
--*Pomeroy, William J, The Forest (1965)
--*Prichard, Katharine Susannah, On Strenuous Wings: A Half-Century of Selected Writings (1965)
--Pritt, Denis Nowell, Unrepentant Agressors: An Examination of West German Policies (1969)
--Reed, John, Adventures of a Young Man (1966 and 1975)
--Reed, John, Education of John Reed (1972)
--Rose, Frederick, Australia Revisited: The Aborigine Store from Stone Age to Space Age (1968)
--Saxton, Alexander, Bright Web in the Darkness (1959)
--Schneider, Rolf, Deep Waters [trans. John Peet] (1968)
--Seghers, Anna, Benito's Blue and Nine Other Stories [trans. Joan Becker] (1973)
--Shore, Herbert L., ed., Come Back, Africa!: Short Stories from South Africa (1968)
--Stern, Kurt & Jean, Ricefield - Battlefield: A Visit to North Vietnam (1969)
--Stewart, Margaret, Wives, Women and Wenches (1966)
--Thackeray, William Makepeace, Snobs and Other Characters (1959)
--*Twain, Mark, King Leopold's Soliloquy (1961)
--*Twain, Mark, Your Personal Mark Twain (1961)
--*Uhse, Bodo, Lieutenant Bertram: A Novel of the Nazi Luftwaffe (1961)
--*Vickers, Bert, The Mirage (1958)
--Voynich, E. L. , Gadfly (1967)
--Wander, Fred, Seventh Well [trans. Marc Linder] (1976)
--*Weiskopf, F. C., The Firing Squad [trans. James A. Galston] (1961 and.or 1964)
--Witt, Hubert, Brecht as They Knew Him [trans. John Peet] (1974)
--Witt, Hubert, ed, Thinking it Over: 30 Stories from the German Democratic Republic (1977)
--Wolf, Christa, Divided Heaven: A Novel of Germany Today [trans. Joan Becker] (1965)
--Wolf, Christa, Reader and Writer: Essays, Sketches, Memories [trans. Joan Becker] (1977)
--*Zweig, Arnold, A Bit of Blood and Other Stories (1959)

Others:
--*A Collection of Short Stories by Nineteenth Century British Authors (Scott, Dickens, Eliot, Wilde, Hardy, Gaskell, Trollope, Gissing, Stevenson), 1961
--*A Pair of Mittens and Other Stories (Brauning, Claudius, Djacenko, Fuhmann, Neutsch) (1961)
--*Australians Have a Word for It: Fourteen Short Stories from Down Under (1964)
--*Following the Sun: 17 Tales from Australia, India, South Africa (1960)
--*Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and Other Stories (not sure if this is a single volume by Stephen Crane or an anthology of many authors; editor is Wirzberger) (1958)
--*Old Land New People: German Short Stories (1960)
--*Thea Lives to See It: A Collection of Short Stories [seems to be stories trans. from the German] (1963)