Christoph Reusner

Reusner, Christoph, was a bookseller and bookbinder in Stockholm, and was probably born there, but date of birth is unknown. In 1675 he printed, and seems also to have edited, a collection of hymns for the German congregation at Stockholm, entitled Gottselige Haus-und Kirchen-Andacht, zu Dienst der Gemeine der Teutschen Kirche in Stockholm. This work contains a number of hymns signed "R," which have been ascribed to Reusner. By others this "R" has been taken to mean Regina, i.e. the Queen of Sweden [Ulrike Eleonoro, daughter of King Frederick in. of Denmark, born at Copenhagen, Sept. 11, 1656; became Queen of Sweden by her marriage with Charles xi. in 1680; died at Carlberg, July 26, 1693], but this ascription seems quite improbable. One of these hymns has passed into English, viz.:—

Bin ich allein ein Fremdling auf der Erden. Cross and Consolation. 1st pub. 1675 as above. A copy of this work is in the Royal Library at Stockholm, and Dr. G. E. Klemming, the librarian, has kindly informed me that the hymn in question is No. 441, and is in 13 st. and signed "R." He adds that in the ed. of 1683 it has 15 st. (st. xi., xii. being additional), and that in the Geistliches Handbuch, Stockholm, Wankjjff, 1682, it has 17 stanzas (xi.-xiv. being additional). As the German hymn-books copied from Stockholm, there is the same variety in them, e.g. the Frankfurt ed., 1678, of Crüger’s Praxis, No. 827, has the 13 st. of 1675 ; while the Riga Gesang-Buch, 1680 (Andachts-Flamme), the 17 stanzas of 1682, and so in Freylinghausen's Neues Geistreiches Gesang-Buch, 1714, No. 440. Bunsen, in his Versuch, 1833, No. 881, follows the 1675, but omits st. iii., vi. The translation in common use is:—
Am I a stranger here, on earth alone. In full from Bunsen, by Miss Winkworth, in her Lyra Germanica, 1st Ser., 1855, p. 57. In her Chorale Book for England, 1863, No. 43, the trs. of st. v., vii., viii., x. are omitted, and it is given altered in metre as "Am I on earth a lone and friendless stranger." [Rev. James Mearns, M.A.]

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)