Horkheimer long resisted republishing his 1930s essays over fear of being misunderstood

Evidence

In June, 1965, he wrote a letter to the S. Fischer Verlag explaining his reluctance in terms of the changed circumstances under which he had written the essays; their content, he argued, might well be misunderstood today as a result. But in 1968 he finally relented, and the long-awaited republication took place in two volumes called Kriiische Theorie. Their appearance was one of the primary stimuli to the interest in the earlier period of the Institut’s history among whose results is the present study. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 861

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader historiographical point that canon-formation often depends on later republication decisions and authorial self-censorship. — connects to: Horkheimer himself distrusted the hopeful elements in his authoritarian state essay. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1159