A small masterpiece, 28 Oct 2008
Stefan Zweig has recently been "rediscovered", or perhaps what we mean is "reprinted"? Thank God for that. On this story alone, he rates as one of the great writers of the 20th Century.
Here he gets into the brain of a 12-year-old who is just discovering adult life. He is also discovering that his mother is a sensual female with adulterous leanings. It is wonderfully written and unputdownable. It will make you cry and laugh. And it will re-awaken your delight in clear, clean, wonderfully expressive language and an author who is a master at telling a story and revealing emotions. Don't read this review, read the book, and move on to his other books. He is a master, perhaps a genius.

A novella by a great and subtle story-teller, 14 Oct 2008
We must be grateful to the Pushkin Press for publishing a series of novellas by the wonderful Stefan Zweig, even if the cover price for these little gems of not much more than a hundred pages is a bit steep. But then, in extenuation, this and some of the other volumes have been newly and brilliantly translated by Anthea Bell.

We are in Zweig country. The scenery is wonderfully conveyed in the opening pages. The story is set in the eroticized atmosphere at the end of the Habsburg Empire. There are three characters: a suave baron, on holiday at a hotel, who is an accomplished, cold and determined seducer; an elegant woman who is his more than half-willing prey; and her lonely twelve-year-old son Edgar. The baron first opens his campaign by befriending the boy. Edgar responds passionately to the baron's apparent interest in him, but then he discovers, first with bewilderment and then with rage, that he is in fact de trop. We have to accept that the sheltered Edgar is more innocent than a twelve-year old boy would be today. He guesses that the adults are keeping something from him, but he cannot work out what that secret might be. But he takes his revenge by making sure that he would continue to be de trop, since this was obviously embarrassing and inhibiting them both.

I must not reveal the rest of the story; but it is tense and moving, and Edgar veers back and forth between dependent childhood and the first frightening steps of independence.

The thoughts of all three characters are described with the amplitude and subtlety that is characteristic of this very great writer.

A small masterpiece, 28 Oct 2008
Stefan Zweig has recently been "rediscovered", or perhaps what we mean is "reprinted"? Thank God for that. On this story alone, he rates as one of the great writers of the 20th Century.
Here he gets into the brain of a 12-year-old who is just discovering adult life. He is also discovering that his mother is a sensual female with adulterous leanings. It is wonderfully written and unputdownable. It will make you cry and laugh. And it will re-awaken your delight in clear, clean, wonderfully expressive language and an author who is a master at telling a story and revealing emotions. Don't read this review, read the book, and move on to his other books. He is a master, perhaps a genius.

A novella by a great and subtle story-teller, 14 Oct 2008
We must be grateful to the Pushkin Press for publishing a series of novellas by the wonderful Stefan Zweig, even if the cover price for these little gems of not much more than a hundred pages is a bit steep. But then, in extenuation, this and some of the other volumes have been newly and brilliantly translated by Anthea Bell.

We are in Zweig country. The scenery is wonderfully conveyed in the opening pages. The story is set in the eroticized atmosphere at the end of the Habsburg Empire. There are three characters: a suave baron, on holiday at a hotel, who is an accomplished, cold and determined seducer; an elegant woman who is his more than half-willing prey; and her lonely twelve-year-old son Edgar. The baron first opens his campaign by befriending the boy. Edgar responds passionately to the baron's apparent interest in him, but then he discovers, first with bewilderment and then with rage, that he is in fact de trop. We have to accept that the sheltered Edgar is more innocent than a twelve-year old boy would be today. He guesses that the adults are keeping something from him, but he cannot work out what that secret might be. But he takes his revenge by making sure that he would continue to be de trop, since this was obviously embarrassing and inhibiting them both.

I must not reveal the rest of the story; but it is tense and moving, and Edgar veers back and forth between dependent childhood and the first frightening steps of independence.

The thoughts of all three characters are described with the amplitude and subtlety that is characteristic of this very great writer.


A dark, gripping book, 22 Apr 2007
I first read Chess: A Novel, in High School and I have loved it ever since. It is extremely difficult to put it down as it delves so much into the human psyche and the power to survive, the need to focus on something, anything, to still find a purpose in life. What makes this book even more interesting is that, if my memories are right, this book was written before the end of the second world war, but also that Stefan Zweig committed suicide not long after writing this book. It is quite small and quickly read, so if you fancy an excellent quick read which will really make you think, don't look any further.

Gripping novella by a master storyteller, 01 Mar 2006
This is a little gem of a book. I was intrigued the moment I read the blurb and I wasn't disappointed. This is a compelling story told by a master storyteller. The book was written in 1942 while the author was in exile in Brazil. It was completed just days before he committed suicide.

The story centres around an eccentric character who, despite lack of any discernible intellectual prowess, turns out to be a master chess player. On board a ship to Buenos Aires he is challenged to a game by some of the passengers who are curious about his character. All opponents are duly overcome until a mysterious man steps forward to prompt one of the players and it becomes clear that his grasp of the game is enough to defeat the grandmaster. We are then taken into the back story of this character and the secret behind his abilities at the chess board. To say that this is a page turner is a serious understatement. I challenge anyone not to finish it in one go.

A small masterpiece, 28 Oct 2008
Stefan Zweig has recently been "rediscovered", or perhaps what we mean is "reprinted"? Thank God for that. On this story alone, he rates as one of the great writers of the 20th Century.
Here he gets into the brain of a 12-year-old who is just discovering adult life. He is also discovering that his mother is a sensual female with adulterous leanings. It is wonderfully written and unputdownable. It will make you cry and laugh. And it will re-awaken your delight in clear, clean, wonderfully expressive language and an author who is a master at telling a story and revealing emotions. Don't read this review, read the book, and move on to his other books. He is a master, perhaps a genius.

A novella by a great and subtle story-teller, 14 Oct 2008
We must be grateful to the Pushkin Press for publishing a series of novellas by the wonderful Stefan Zweig, even if the cover price for these little gems of not much more than a hundred pages is a bit steep. But then, in extenuation, this and some of the other volumes have been newly and brilliantly translated by Anthea Bell.

We are in Zweig country. The scenery is wonderfully conveyed in the opening pages. The story is set in the eroticized atmosphere at the end of the Habsburg Empire. There are three characters: a suave baron, on holiday at a hotel, who is an accomplished, cold and determined seducer; an elegant woman who is his more than half-willing prey; and her lonely twelve-year-old son Edgar. The baron first opens his campaign by befriending the boy. Edgar responds passionately to the baron's apparent interest in him, but then he discovers, first with bewilderment and then with rage, that he is in fact de trop. We have to accept that the sheltered Edgar is more innocent than a twelve-year old boy would be today. He guesses that the adults are keeping something from him, but he cannot work out what that secret might be. But he takes his revenge by making sure that he would continue to be de trop, since this was obviously embarrassing and inhibiting them both.

I must not reveal the rest of the story; but it is tense and moving, and Edgar veers back and forth between dependent childhood and the first frightening steps of independence.

The thoughts of all three characters are described with the amplitude and subtlety that is characteristic of this very great writer.


A dark, gripping book, 22 Apr 2007
I first read Chess: A Novel, in High School and I have loved it ever since. It is extremely difficult to put it down as it delves so much into the human psyche and the power to survive, the need to focus on something, anything, to still find a purpose in life. What makes this book even more interesting is that, if my memories are right, this book was written before the end of the second world war, but also that Stefan Zweig committed suicide not long after writing this book. It is quite small and quickly read, so if you fancy an excellent quick read which will really make you think, don't look any further.

Gripping novella by a master storyteller, 01 Mar 2006
This is a little gem of a book. I was intrigued the moment I read the blurb and I wasn't disappointed. This is a compelling story told by a master storyteller. The book was written in 1942 while the author was in exile in Brazil. It was completed just days before he committed suicide.

The story centres around an eccentric character who, despite lack of any discernible intellectual prowess, turns out to be a master chess player. On board a ship to Buenos Aires he is challenged to a game by some of the passengers who are curious about his character. All opponents are duly overcome until a mysterious man steps forward to prompt one of the players and it becomes clear that his grasp of the game is enough to defeat the grandmaster. We are then taken into the back story of this character and the secret behind his abilities at the chess board. To say that this is a page turner is a serious understatement. I challenge anyone not to finish it in one go.

breathtaking, 20 Dec 2007
fantastic book and great review by the gentleman from serbia - particularly as regards the harry potter. It is truly mindblowingly, heartrendingly tragic that a non-entity writing about goblins and magic wands can auction off one of her manuscripts for 1.7 million pounds, whereas Zweig, a genius who teaches us what it is to be human, ended up committing suicide. But that's what people today want: easily read poop....

A remarkable autobiography, 09 Sep 2006
Zweig's aim was to compose an eyewitness report on the first part of the twentieth century in order to save the horrendous truth for the next generations.
It is a shocking report about what he calls the 'Apocalypse': terror, war, revolutions, inflation, famine, epidemics, emigration, the rise of bolshevism, fascism and the most horrific plague of all: nationalism.
He gives us a compelling story of contrasts: the soldiers in the trenches and the arms merchants with their luxury life; English unemployed in five star hotels in Salzburg because they could afford a luxury life on the continent with their unemployment benefits; the brothels and the suicides because of syphilis (Eros Matutina); and the desertion of the Kaiser as a thief in the night at the end of the war, after driving millions of his compatriots into a certain death.
He also relates his encounters with fellow writers like Gide, Rolland, Rilke or Verhaeren.
A moving, outspoken, penetrating and emotional report.
A masterpiece.

BEST OF ALL TIMES, 31 Jan 2003
For me the best book of all times. Zweig "World of Yesterday" is an unforgettable classic, witch should be mandatory in any high school. The best-selling writer in "yesterday world", world of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Mann and any other great writers, he could be happy that his work is not granted in "today world", world of Harry Potter, and similar books.
This book is much more then autobiography, it's a story of one time, it's a vivid, moving and nostalgic portrayal of Europe before wars, it's a story about intellectual brotherhood witch tried to prevent nationalistic madness that destroyed the Europe and the World, twice.
It is a story about what Zweig calls the "Apocalypse": war, revolutions, inflation, famine, epidemics, emigration, the rise of bolshevism, fascism and the most horrific of all: nationalism.
Zweig commits a suicide after he finished this work (1942), he stay in "World of Yesterday".

A small masterpiece, 28 Oct 2008
Stefan Zweig has recently been "rediscovered", or perhaps what we mean is "reprinted"? Thank God for that. On this story alone, he rates as one of the great writers of the 20th Century.
Here he gets into the brain of a 12-year-old who is just discovering adult life. He is also discovering that his mother is a sensual female with adulterous leanings. It is wonderfully written and unputdownable. It will make you cry and laugh. And it will re-awaken your delight in clear, clean, wonderfully expressive language and an author who is a master at telling a story and revealing emotions. Don't read this review, read the book, and move on to his other books. He is a master, perhaps a genius.

A novella by a great and subtle story-teller, 14 Oct 2008
We must be grateful to the Pushkin Press for publishing a series of novellas by the wonderful Stefan Zweig, even if the cover price for these little gems of not much more than a hundred pages is a bit steep. But then, in extenuation, this and some of the other volumes have been newly and brilliantly translated by Anthea Bell.

We are in Zweig country. The scenery is wonderfully conveyed in the opening pages. The story is set in the eroticized atmosphere at the end of the Habsburg Empire. There are three characters: a suave baron, on holiday at a hotel, who is an accomplished, cold and determined seducer; an elegant woman who is his more than half-willing prey; and her lonely twelve-year-old son Edgar. The baron first opens his campaign by befriending the boy. Edgar responds passionately to the baron's apparent interest in him, but then he discovers, first with bewilderment and then with rage, that he is in fact de trop. We have to accept that the sheltered Edgar is more innocent than a twelve-year old boy would be today. He guesses that the adults are keeping something from him, but he cannot work out what that secret might be. But he takes his revenge by making sure that he would continue to be de trop, since this was obviously embarrassing and inhibiting them both.

I must not reveal the rest of the story; but it is tense and moving, and Edgar veers back and forth between dependent childhood and the first frightening steps of independence.

The thoughts of all three characters are described with the amplitude and subtlety that is characteristic of this very great writer.


A dark, gripping book, 22 Apr 2007
I first read Chess: A Novel, in High School and I have loved it ever since. It is extremely difficult to put it down as it delves so much into the human psyche and the power to survive, the need to focus on something, anything, to still find a purpose in life. What makes this book even more interesting is that, if my memories are right, this book was written before the end of the second world war, but also that Stefan Zweig committed suicide not long after writing this book. It is quite small and quickly read, so if you fancy an excellent quick read which will really make you think, don't look any further.

Gripping novella by a master storyteller, 01 Mar 2006
This is a little gem of a book. I was intrigued the moment I read the blurb and I wasn't disappointed. This is a compelling story told by a master storyteller. The book was written in 1942 while the author was in exile in Brazil. It was completed just days before he committed suicide.

The story centres around an eccentric character who, despite lack of any discernible intellectual prowess, turns out to be a master chess player. On board a ship to Buenos Aires he is challenged to a game by some of the passengers who are curious about his character. All opponents are duly overcome until a mysterious man steps forward to prompt one of the players and it becomes clear that his grasp of the game is enough to defeat the grandmaster. We are then taken into the back story of this character and the secret behind his abilities at the chess board. To say that this is a page turner is a serious understatement. I challenge anyone not to finish it in one go.

breathtaking, 20 Dec 2007
fantastic book and great review by the gentleman from serbia - particularly as regards the harry potter. It is truly mindblowingly, heartrendingly tragic that a non-entity writing about goblins and magic wands can auction off one of her manuscripts for 1.7 million pounds, whereas Zweig, a genius who teaches us what it is to be human, ended up committing suicide. But that's what people today want: easily read poop....

A remarkable autobiography, 09 Sep 2006
Zweig's aim was to compose an eyewitness report on the first part of the twentieth century in order to save the horrendous truth for the next generations.
It is a shocking report about what he calls the 'Apocalypse': terror, war, revolutions, inflation, famine, epidemics, emigration, the rise of bolshevism, fascism and the most horrific plague of all: nationalism.
He gives us a compelling story of contrasts: the soldiers in the trenches and the arms merchants with their luxury life; English unemployed in five star hotels in Salzburg because they could afford a luxury life on the continent with their unemployment benefits; the brothels and the suicides because of syphilis (Eros Matutina); and the desertion of the Kaiser as a thief in the night at the end of the war, after driving millions of his compatriots into a certain death.
He also relates his encounters with fellow writers like Gide, Rolland, Rilke or Verhaeren.
A moving, outspoken, penetrating and emotional report.
A masterpiece.

BEST OF ALL TIMES, 31 Jan 2003
For me the best book of all times. Zweig "World of Yesterday" is an unforgettable classic, witch should be mandatory in any high school. The best-selling writer in "yesterday world", world of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Mann and any other great writers, he could be happy that his work is not granted in "today world", world of Harry Potter, and similar books.
This book is much more then autobiography, it's a story of one time, it's a vivid, moving and nostalgic portrayal of Europe before wars, it's a story about intellectual brotherhood witch tried to prevent nationalistic madness that destroyed the Europe and the World, twice.
It is a story about what Zweig calls the "Apocalypse": war, revolutions, inflation, famine, epidemics, emigration, the rise of bolshevism, fascism and the most horrific of all: nationalism.
Zweig commits a suicide after he finished this work (1942), he stay in "World of Yesterday".

Short stories in the classical tradition, 13 Sep 2008
This collection of four stories, reflects the imminent tragedy of Zweig's life (he committed suicide in 1942, believing that the Nazi regime were about to win the war), for they all end in a suicide, causing the reader to wonder how far Zweig had conditioned himself to the thought of death by his own hand in the years leading up to his own demise. In reading this I was reminded of W G Sebald's book The Emigrants, in which his characters also take their own lives.

The stories are rich with understanding of people under pressure. Zweig was a master of describing the agonies of people beset by a burning conscience, the pain of a thwarted desire to return to loved ones, the pain of unrequited love. His characters are people who feel things more deeply than most, who are unable to shrug off emotional pressure or to find escape in diversionary activities. They live on the existential edge of their mental suffering and find no balm in the consolation of friendship or the beauties of nature. The stories serve as a reminder that tragedy can strike anyone, however settled, particularly those who step outside their settled lives, whether voluntarily, in seeking a better life for themselves, or involuntarily through the effects of war or social disruption.

The subjects of these stories feel things greatly. Where others may be upset, these people are desperate. Where others feel affection for a friend, these feel a passionate force that dominates their lives. Where a mistake has been made, Zweig's characters feel a conscience so great that it drives them to distraction. And yet as the newspapers show every day, these things happen in real life, and perhaps Zweig was more plugged into the realities of emotional extremity than those with more settled minds.

Zweig fans will want to own this book, as indeed would anyone who enjoys the short-story tradition of classical European literature.

Variations on a theme, 12 Jun 2008
Stefan Zweig is a superb story teller, and the four stories in this volume, all ending in the suicide of the principal character, are full of atmospheric descriptions - of character, of landscape, of atmosphere - and of narrative tension. It does not really matter that the first two stories are inherently incredible. In each of these there is a man instantly possessed to the point of madness by an elegant woman, in each case a social superior. Class and race differences play a strong role: in the first case, set in the Dutch East Indies, the wealthy wife of a merchant is superior to a doctor and the white doctor is superior to the natives; in the second the worshipper of the baroness is a waiter. The third story is more credible, and here it is a peasant servant who is devoted to her baronial master.

Zweig's obsession with suicide in these stories of course have a particular poignancy in view of his own suicide, nowhere more so than in the last story, in which a Russian commits suicide far from home. This was written in 1936, two years after he had himself left his native Austria and six years before he ended his own life in a foreign land.

Amok Time, 20 May 2007
The four short, intense stories in this anthology may reveal much about the author, given the pertinent details of the end of Zweig's life. That conclusion may also be far too pat.

Comparisons with Conrad rather flatter Zweig, since Conrad is oddly a much more 'modern' author, despite the fact that Conrad's work is older.

The breathless, almost melodramatic, pace of Amok reminded this reviewer of Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu stories. It is, however, a fine story, full of atmosphere; an expertly rendered depiction of a man who, having failed to fulfil his expectations, let alone his dreams, plummets almost willingly into obsession and despair.

The odd clunky phrase 'white as a sheet', 'dark, black night' may be more the work of the translator. Having said that, Anthea Bell surely does well with the character of Crescenz in Leporella and her rural German accent.

One final note, this little book is nicely produced but turns out to be a little too delicate for those of us forced to do much of our reading out of overnight bags. The edges of the covers wear too easily.

Michael Cope 20/05/07

A small masterpiece, 28 Oct 2008
Stefan Zweig has recently been "rediscovered", or perhaps what we mean is "reprinted"? Thank God for that. On this story alone, he rates as one of the great writers of the 20th Century.
Here he gets into the brain of a 12-year-old who is just discovering adult life. He is also discovering that his mother is a sensual female with adulterous leanings. It is wonderfully written and unputdownable. It will make you cry and laugh. And it will re-awaken your delight in clear, clean, wonderfully expressive language and an author who is a master at telling a story and revealing emotions. Don't read this review, read the book, and move on to his other books. He is a master, perhaps a genius.

A novella by a great and subtle story-teller, 14 Oct 2008
We must be grateful to the Pushkin Press for publishing a series of novellas by the wonderful Stefan Zweig, even if the cover price for these little gems of not much more than a hundred pages is a bit steep. But then, in extenuation, this and some of the other volumes have been newly and brilliantly translated by Anthea Bell.

We are in Zweig country. The scenery is wonderfully conveyed in the opening pages. The story is set in the eroticized atmosphere at the end of the Habsburg Empire. There are three characters: a suave baron, on holiday at a hotel, who is an accomplished, cold and determined seducer; an elegant woman who is his more than half-willing prey; and her lonely twelve-year-old son Edgar. The baron first opens his campaign by befriending the boy. Edgar responds passionately to the baron's apparent interest in him, but then he discovers, first with bewilderment and then with rage, that he is in fact de trop. We have to accept that the sheltered Edgar is more innocent than a twelve-year old boy would be today. He guesses that the adults are keeping something from him, but he cannot work out what that secret might be. But he takes his revenge by making sure that he would continue to be de trop, since this was obviously embarrassing and inhibiting them both.

I must not reveal the rest of the story; but it is tense and moving, and Edgar veers back and forth between dependent childhood and the first frightening steps of independence.

The thoughts of all three characters are described with the amplitude and subtlety that is characteristic of this very great writer.


A dark, gripping book, 22 Apr 2007
I first read Chess: A Novel, in High School and I have loved it ever since. It is extremely difficult to put it down as it delves so much into the human psyche and the power to survive, the need to focus on something, anything, to still find a purpose in life. What makes this book even more interesting is that, if my memories are right, this book was written before the end of the second world war, but also that Stefan Zweig committed suicide not long after writing this book. It is quite small and quickly read, so if you fancy an excellent quick read which will really make you think, don't look any further.

Gripping novella by a master storyteller, 01 Mar 2006
This is a little gem of a book. I was intrigued the moment I read the blurb and I wasn't disappointed. This is a compelling story told by a master storyteller. The book was written in 1942 while the author was in exile in Brazil. It was completed just days before he committed suicide.

The story centres around an eccentric character who, despite lack of any discernible intellectual prowess, turns out to be a master chess player. On board a ship to Buenos Aires he is challenged to a game by some of the passengers who are curious about his character. All opponents are duly overcome until a mysterious man steps forward to prompt one of the players and it becomes clear that his grasp of the game is enough to defeat the grandmaster. We are then taken into the back story of this character and the secret behind his abilities at the chess board. To say that this is a page turner is a serious understatement. I challenge anyone not to finish it in one go.

breathtaking, 20 Dec 2007
fantastic book and great review by the gentleman from serbia - particularly as regards the harry potter. It is truly mindblowingly, heartrendingly tragic that a non-entity writing about goblins and magic wands can auction off one of her manuscripts for 1.7 million pounds, whereas Zweig, a genius who teaches us what it is to be human, ended up committing suicide. But that's what people today want: easily read poop....

A remarkable autobiography, 09 Sep 2006
Zweig's aim was to compose an eyewitness report on the first part of the twentieth century in order to save the horrendous truth for the next generations.
It is a shocking report about what he calls the 'Apocalypse': terror, war, revolutions, inflation, famine, epidemics, emigration, the rise of bolshevism, fascism and the most horrific plague of all: nationalism.
He gives us a compelling story of contrasts: the soldiers in the trenches and the arms merchants with their luxury life; English unemployed in five star hotels in Salzburg because they could afford a luxury life on the continent with their unemployment benefits; the brothels and the suicides because of syphilis (Eros Matutina); and the desertion of the Kaiser as a thief in the night at the end of the war, after driving millions of his compatriots into a certain death.
He also relates his encounters with fellow writers like Gide, Rolland, Rilke or Verhaeren.
A moving, outspoken, penetrating and emotional report.
A masterpiece.

BEST OF ALL TIMES, 31 Jan 2003
For me the best book of all times. Zweig "World of Yesterday" is an unforgettable classic, witch should be mandatory in any high school. The best-selling writer in "yesterday world", world of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Mann and any other great writers, he could be happy that his work is not granted in "today world", world of Harry Potter, and similar books.
This book is much more then autobiography, it's a story of one time, it's a vivid, moving and nostalgic portrayal of Europe before wars, it's a story about intellectual brotherhood witch tried to prevent nationalistic madness that destroyed the Europe and the World, twice.
It is a story about what Zweig calls the "Apocalypse": war, revolutions, inflation, famine, epidemics, emigration, the rise of bolshevism, fascism and the most horrific of all: nationalism.
Zweig commits a suicide after he finished this work (1942), he stay in "World of Yesterday".

Short stories in the classical tradition, 13 Sep 2008
This collection of four stories, reflects the imminent tragedy of Zweig's life (he committed suicide in 1942, believing that the Nazi regime were about to win the war), for they all end in a suicide, causing the reader to wonder how far Zweig had conditioned himself to the thought of death by his own hand in the years leading up to his own demise. In reading this I was reminded of W G Sebald's book The Emigrants, in which his characters also take their own lives.

The stories are rich with understanding of people under pressure. Zweig was a master of describing the agonies of people beset by a burning conscience, the pain of a thwarted desire to return to loved ones, the pain of unrequited love. His characters are people who feel things more deeply than most, who are unable to shrug off emotional pressure or to find escape in diversionary activities. They live on the existential edge of their mental suffering and find no balm in the consolation of friendship or the beauties of nature. The stories serve as a reminder that tragedy can strike anyone, however settled, particularly those who step outside their settled lives, whether voluntarily, in seeking a better life for themselves, or involuntarily through the effects of war or social disruption.

The subjects of these stories feel things greatly. Where others may be upset, these people are desperate. Where others feel affection for a friend, these feel a passionate force that dominates their lives. Where a mistake has been made, Zweig's characters feel a conscience so great that it drives them to distraction. And yet as the newspapers show every day, these things happen in real life, and perhaps Zweig was more plugged into the realities of emotional extremity than those with more settled minds.

Zweig fans will want to own this book, as indeed would anyone who enjoys the short-story tradition of classical European literature.

Variations on a theme, 12 Jun 2008
Stefan Zweig is a superb story teller, and the four stories in this volume, all ending in the suicide of the principal character, are full of atmospheric descriptions - of character, of landscape, of atmosphere - and of narrative tension. It does not really matter that the first two stories are inherently incredible. In each of these there is a man instantly possessed to the point of madness by an elegant woman, in each case a social superior. Class and race differences play a strong role: in the first case, set in the Dutch East Indies, the wealthy wife of a merchant is superior to a doctor and the white doctor is superior to the natives; in the second the worshipper of the baroness is a waiter. The third story is more credible, and here it is a peasant servant who is devoted to her baronial master.

Zweig's obsession with suicide in these stories of course have a particular poignancy in view of his own suicide, nowhere more so than in the last story, in which a Russian commits suicide far from home. This was written in 1936, two years after he had himself left his native Austria and six years before he ended his own life in a foreign land.

Amok Time, 20 May 2007
The four short, intense stories in this anthology may reveal much about the author, given the pertinent details of the end of Zweig's life. That conclusion may also be far too pat.

Comparisons with Conrad rather flatter Zweig, since Conrad is oddly a much more 'modern' author, despite the fact that Conrad's work is older.

The breathless, almost melodramatic, pace of Amok reminded this reviewer of Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu stories. It is, however, a fine story, full of atmosphere; an expertly rendered depiction of a man who, having failed to fulfil his expectations, let alone his dreams, plummets almost willingly into obsession and despair.

The odd clunky phrase 'white as a sheet', 'dark, black night' may be more the work of the translator. Having said that, Anthea Bell surely does well with the character of Crescenz in Leporella and her rural German accent.

One final note, this little book is nicely produced but turns out to be a little too delicate for those of us forced to do much of our reading out of overnight bags. The edges of the covers wear too easily.

Michael Cope 20/05/07

Contents, 29 Sep 2008
I agree that Zweig is a great short story writer but the title story is not enough information about the contents.
I have read many of his short stories and need to know the contents before I know whether to buy it.I may be duplicating stories I already have.
It would be helpful if this could be done, since at present we dont know what we are offerred beyond the first story.
James Bradley

A true delight, 06 Oct 2006
I read this collection of short stories after reading another translation (Journey by Moonlight, Antal Szerb) and was amazed. Having never enjoyed short stories before (I always found them either superficial or found myself frustrated at finishing a story in which I was just getting interested) I discovered that true literary brilliance transcends these obstacles. In short, this collection is something that will be enjoyed by anyone interested in beautiful writing, acute analysis of human emotions and wonderfully constructed stories. The quality of Pushkin Press books is a bonus; buy one and judge for yourself, it makes reading a good book even better! Letter from an Unknown Woman is definitely the best, and for anyone interested, was made into a wonderful film featuring Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan.

A small masterpiece, 28 Oct 2008
Stefan Zweig has recently been "rediscovered", or perhaps what we mean is "reprinted"? Thank God for that. On this story alone, he rates as one of the great writers of the 20th Century.
Here he gets into the brain of a 12-year-old who is just discovering adult life. He is also discovering that his mother is a sensual female with adulterous leanings. It is wonderfully written and unputdownable. It will make you cry and laugh. And it will re-awaken your delight in clear, clean, wonderfully expressive language and an author who is a master at telling a story and revealing emotions. Don't read this review, read the book, and move on to his other books. He is a master, perhaps a genius.

A novella by a great and subtle story-teller, 14 Oct 2008
We must be grateful to the Pushkin Press for publishing a series of novellas by the wonderful Stefan Zweig, even if the cover price for these little gems of not much more than a hundred pages is a bit steep. But then, in extenuation, this and some of the other volumes have been newly and brilliantly translated by Anthea Bell.

We are in Zweig country. The scenery is wonderfully conveyed in the opening pages. The story is set in the eroticized atmosphere at the end of the Habsburg Empire. There are three characters: a suave baron, on holiday at a hotel, who is an accomplished, cold and determined seducer; an elegant woman who is his more than half-willing prey; and her lonely twelve-year-old son Edgar. The baron first opens his campaign by befriending the boy. Edgar responds passionately to the baron's apparent interest in him, but then he discovers, first with bewilderment and then with rage, that he is in fact de trop. We have to accept that the sheltered Edgar is more innocent than a twelve-year old boy would be today. He guesses that the adults are keeping something from him, but he cannot work out what that secret might be. But he takes his revenge by making sure that he would continue to be de trop, since this was obviously embarrassing and inhibiting them both.

I must not reveal the rest of the story; but it is tense and moving, and Edgar veers back and forth between dependent childhood and the first frightening steps of independence.

The thoughts of all three characters are described with the amplitude and subtlety that is characteristic of this very great writer.


A dark, gripping book, 22 Apr 2007
I first read Chess: A Novel, in High School and I have loved it ever since. It is extremely difficult to put it down as it delves so much into the human psyche and the power to survive, the need to focus on something, anything, to still find a purpose in life. What makes this book even more interesting is that, if my memories are right, this book was written before the end of the second world war, but also that Stefan Zweig committed suicide not long after writing this book. It is quite small and quickly read, so if you fancy an excellent quick read which will really make you think, don't look any further.

Gripping novella by a master storyteller, 01 Mar 2006
This is a little gem of a book. I was intrigued the moment I read the blurb and I wasn't disappointed. This is a compelling story told by a master storyteller. The book was written in 1942 while the author was in exile in Brazil. It was completed just days before he committed suicide.

The story centres around an eccentric character who, despite lack of any discernible intellectual prowess, turns out to be a master chess player. On board a ship to Buenos Aires he is challenged to a game by some of the passengers who are curious about his character. All opponents are duly overcome until a mysterious man steps forward to prompt one of the players and it becomes clear that his grasp of the game is enough to defeat the grandmaster. We are then taken into the back story of this character and the secret behind his abilities at the chess board. To say that this is a page turner is a serious understatement. I challenge anyone not to finish it in one go.

breathtaking, 20 Dec 2007
fantastic book and great review by the gentleman from serbia - particularly as regards the harry potter. It is truly mindblowingly, heartrendingly tragic that a non-entity writing about goblins and magic wands can auction off one of her manuscripts for 1.7 million pounds, whereas Zweig, a genius who teaches us what it is to be human, ended up committing suicide. But that's what people today want: easily read poop....

A remarkable autobiography, 09 Sep 2006
Zweig's aim was to compose an eyewitness report on the first part of the twentieth century in order to save the horrendous truth for the next generations.
It is a shocking report about what he calls the 'Apocalypse': terror, war, revolutions, inflation, famine, epidemics, emigration, the rise of bolshevism, fascism and the most horrific plague of all: nationalism.
He gives us a compelling story of contrasts: the soldiers in the trenches and the arms merchants with their luxury life; English unemployed in five star hotels in Salzburg because they could afford a luxury life on the continent with their unemployment benefits; the brothels and the suicides because of syphilis (Eros Matutina); and the desertion of the Kaiser as a thief in the night at the end of the war, after driving millions of his compatriots into a certain death.
He also relates his encounters with fellow writers like Gide, Rolland, Rilke or Verhaeren.
A moving, outspoken, penetrating and emotional report.
A masterpiece.

BEST OF ALL TIMES, 31 Jan 2003
For me the best book of all times. Zweig "World of Yesterday" is an unforgettable classic, witch should be mandatory in any high school. The best-selling writer in "yesterday world", world of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Mann and any other great writers, he could be happy that his work is not granted in "today world", world of Harry Potter, and similar books.
This book is much more then autobiography, it's a story of one time, it's a vivid, moving and nostalgic portrayal of Europe before wars, it's a story about intellectual brotherhood witch tried to prevent nationalistic madness that destroyed the Europe and the World, twice.
It is a story about what Zweig calls the "Apocalypse": war, revolutions, inflation, famine, epidemics, emigration, the rise of bolshevism, fascism and the most horrific of all: nationalism.
Zweig commits a suicide after he finished this work (1942), he stay in "World of Yesterday".

Short stories in the classical tradition, 13 Sep 2008
This collection of four stories, reflects the imminent tragedy of Zweig's life (he committed suicide in 1942, believing that the Nazi regime were about to win the war), for they all end in a suicide, causing the reader to wonder how far Zweig had conditioned himself to the thought of death by his own hand in the years leading up to his own demise. In reading this I was reminded of W G Sebald's book The Emigrants, in which his characters also take their own lives.

The stories are rich with understanding of people under pressure. Zweig was a master of describing the agonies of people beset by a burning conscience, the pain of a thwarted desire to return to loved ones, the pain of unrequited love. His characters are people who feel things more deeply than most, who are unable to shrug off emotional pressure or to find escape in diversionary activities. They live on the existential edge of their mental suffering and find no balm in the consolation of friendship or the beauties of nature. The stories serve as a reminder that tragedy can strike anyone, however settled, particularly those who step outside their settled lives, whether voluntarily, in seeking a better life for themselves, or involuntarily through the effects of war or social disruption.

The subjects of these stories feel things greatly. Where others may be upset, these people are desperate. Where others feel affection for a friend, these feel a passionate force that dominates their lives. Where a mistake has been made, Zweig's characters feel a conscience so great that it drives them to distraction. And yet as the newspapers show every day, these things happen in real life, and perhaps Zweig was more plugged into the realities of emotional extremity than those with more settled minds.

Zweig fans will want to own this book, as indeed would anyone who enjoys the short-story tradition of classical European literature.

Variations on a theme, 12 Jun 2008
Stefan Zweig is a superb story teller, and the four stories in this volume, all ending in the suicide of the principal character, are full of atmospheric descriptions - of character, of landscape, of atmosphere - and of narrative tension. It does not really matter that the first two stories are inherently incredible. In each of these there is a man instantly possessed to the point of madness by an elegant woman, in each case a social superior. Class and race differences play a strong role: in the first case, set in the Dutch East Indies, the wealthy wife of a merchant is superior to a doctor and the white doctor is superior to the natives; in the second the worshipper of the baroness is a waiter. The third story is more credible, and here it is a peasant servant who is devoted to her baronial master.

Zweig's obsession with suicide in these stories of course have a particular poignancy in view of his own suicide, nowhere more so than in the last story, in which a Russian commits suicide far from home. This was written in 1936, two years after he had himself left his native Austria and six years before he ended his own life in a foreign land.

Amok Time, 20 May 2007
The four short, intense stories in this anthology may reveal much about the author, given the pertinent details of the end of Zweig's life. That conclusion may also be far too pat.

Comparisons with Conrad rather flatter Zweig, since Conrad is oddly a much more 'modern' author, despite the fact that Conrad's work is older.

The breathless, almost melodramatic, pace of Amok reminded this reviewer of Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu stories. It is, however, a fine story, full of atmosphere; an expertly rendered depiction of a man who, having failed to fulfil his expectations, let alone his dreams, plummets almost willingly into obsession and despair.

The odd clunky phrase 'white as a sheet', 'dark, black night' may be more the work of the translator. Having said that, Anthea Bell surely does well with the character of Crescenz in Leporella and her rural German accent.

One final note, this little book is nicely produced but turns out to be a little too delicate for those of us forced to do much of our reading out of overnight bags. The edges of the covers wear too easily.

Michael Cope 20/05/07

Contents, 29 Sep 2008
I agree that Zweig is a great short story writer but the title story is not enough information about the contents.
I have read many of his short stories and need to know the contents before I know whether to buy it.I may be duplicating stories I already have.
It would be helpful if this could be done, since at present we dont know what we are offerred beyond the first story.
James Bradley

A true delight, 06 Oct 2006
I read this collection of short stories after reading another translation (Journey by Moonlight, Antal Szerb) and was amazed. Having never enjoyed short stories before (I always found them either superficial or found myself frustrated at finishing a story in which I was just getting interested) I discovered that true literary brilliance transcends these obstacles. In short, this collection is something that will be enjoyed by anyone interested in beautiful writing, acute analysis of human emotions and wonderfully constructed stories. The quality of Pushkin Press books is a bonus; buy one and judge for yourself, it makes reading a good book even better! Letter from an Unknown Woman is definitely the best, and for anyone interested, was made into a wonderful film featuring Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan.

The last Queen of France - an extraordinary perspective, 30 Aug 2007
I suppose we all have a certain opinion on Marie Antoinette.

Traditional histories have portrayed Marie Antoinette as a shallow, weak, and self-indulgent person. Others have turned her into a saint.

In 1933, Stefan Zweig wrote this biography of her in which he argued that the queen achieved greatness during the final years of her life thanks to her extraordinary courage.

Stephan Zweigs's biography is quite extraordinary as it is partly a traditional biography, partly a psychological study and partly a work of high literature. It is demanding to read, but rewarding. It presents a very different view of his woman and Queen. It helps to re-think and re-evaluate this last Queen of France (the last Queen in France was her nice Marie Amelie but as Queen of the French from 1830-1848).

Very Enjoyable and Informative, 12 Dec 2003
I really liked this book as it was very descriptive and gave a very full picture of Marie Antoinette. It also describes very well the events of the French Revolution, particularly from the viewpoint of the royal family. I think this is an excellent book and fuller than some others.

A good read, 19 Jan 2003
I feel the book was not capturing me as much as i would have liked it to. the explanitive style of the author, stefan zweig, in this book: Marie Antointte: the portrate of an average woman, was in some places not as detailed as some of his other books, such as Royal game, or, Confusion. It didnt move my emotions very much except my pity for the citizens of the citizens in france in the 1700's, the time of Louis XVI. all in all i didnt like it very much as i was near the end when i only started getting into it . Hope to read more from Stefan Zweig. James

A small masterpiece, 28 Oct 2008
Stefan Zweig has recently been "rediscovered", or perhaps what we mean is "reprinted"? Thank God for that. On this story alone, he rates as one of the great writers of the 20th Century.
Here he gets into the brain of a 12-year-old who is just discovering adult life. He is also discovering that his mother is a sensual female with adulterous leanings. It is wonderfully written and unputdownable. It will make you cry and laugh. And it will re-awaken your delight in clear, clean, wonderfully expressive language and an author who is a master at telling a story and revealing emotions. Don't read this review, read the book, and move on to his other books. He is a master, perhaps a genius.

A novella by a great and subtle story-teller, 14 Oct 2008
We must be grateful to the Pushkin Press for publishing a series of novellas by the wonderful Stefan Zweig, even if the cover price for these little gems of not much more than a hundred pages is a bit steep. But then, in extenuation, this and some of the other volumes have been newly and brilliantly translated by Anthea Bell.

We are in Zweig country. The scenery is wonderfully conveyed in the opening pages. The story is set in the eroticized atmosphere at the end of the Habsburg Empire. There are three characters: a suave baron, on holiday at a hotel, who is an accomplished, cold and determined seducer; an elegant woman who is his more than half-willing prey; and her lonely twelve-year-old son Edgar. The baron first opens his campaign by befriending the boy. Edgar responds passionately to the baron's apparent interest in him, but then he discovers, first with bewilderment and then with rage, that he is in fact de trop. We have to accept that the sheltered Edgar is more innocent than a twelve-year old boy would be today. He guesses that the adults are keeping something from him, but he cannot work out what that secret might be. But he takes his revenge by making sure that he would continue to be de trop, since this was obviously embarrassing and inhibiting them both.

I must not reveal the rest of the story; but it is tense and moving, and Edgar veers back and forth between dependent childhood and the first frightening steps of independence.

The thoughts of all three characters are described with the amplitude and subtlety that is characteristic of this very great writer.


A dark, gripping book, 22 Apr 2007
I first read Chess: A Novel, in High School and I have loved it ever since. It is extremely difficult to put it down as it delves so much into the human psyche and the power to survive, the need to focus on something, anything, to still find a purpose in life. What makes this book even more interesting is that, if my memories are right, this book was written before the end of the second world war, but also that Stefan Zweig committed suicide not long after writing this book. It is quite small and quickly read, so if you fancy an excellent quick read which will really make you think, don't look any further.

Gripping novella by a master storyteller, 01 Mar 2006
This is a little gem of a book. I was intrigued the moment I read the blurb and I wasn't disappointed. This is a compelling story told by a master storyteller. The book was written in 1942 while the author was in exile in Brazil. It was completed just days before he committed suicide.

The story centres around an eccentric character who, despite lack of any discernible intellectual prowess, turns out to be a master chess player. On board a ship to Buenos Aires he is challenged to a game by some of the passengers who are curious about his character. All opponents are duly overcome until a mysterious man steps forward to prompt one of the players and it becomes clear that his grasp of the game is enough to defeat the grandmaster. We are then taken into the back story of this character and the secret behind his abilities at the chess board. To say that this is a page turner is a serious understatement. I challenge anyone not to finish it in one go.

breathtaking, 20 Dec 2007
fantastic book and great review by the gentleman from serbia - particularly as regards the harry potter. It is truly mindblowingly, heartrendingly tragic that a non-entity writing about goblins and magic wands can auction off one of her manuscripts for 1.7 million pounds, whereas Zweig, a genius who teaches us what it is to be human, ended up committing suicide. But that's what people today want: easily read poop....

A remarkable autobiography, 09 Sep 2006
Zweig's aim was to compose an eyewitness report on the first part of the twentieth century in order to save the horrendous truth for the next generations.
It is a shocking report about what he calls the 'Apocalypse': terror, war, revolutions, inflation, famine, epidemics, emigration, the rise of bolshevism, fascism and the most horrific plague of all: nationalism.
He gives us a compelling story of contrasts: the soldiers in the trenches and the arms merchants with their luxury life; English unemployed in five star hotels in Salzburg because they could afford a luxury life on the continent with their unemployment benefits; the brothels and the suicides because of syphilis (Eros Matutina); and the desertion of the Kaiser as a thief in the night at the end of the war, after driving millions of his compatriots into a certain death.
He also relates his encounters with fellow writers like Gide, Rolland, Rilke or Verhaeren.
A moving, outspoken, penetrating and emotional report.
A masterpiece.

BEST OF ALL TIMES, 31 Jan 2003
For me the best book of all times. Zweig "World of Yesterday" is an unforgettable classic, witch should be mandatory in any high school. The best-selling writer in "yesterday world", world of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Mann and any other great writers, he could be happy that his work is not granted in "today world", world of Harry Potter, and similar books.
This book is much more then autobiography, it's a story of one time, it's a vivid, moving and nostalgic portrayal of Europe before wars, it's a story about intellectual brotherhood witch tried to prevent nationalistic madness that destroyed the Europe and the World, twice.
It is a story about what Zweig calls the "Apocalypse": war, revolutions, inflation, famine, epidemics, emigration, the rise of bolshevism, fascism and the most horrific of all: nationalism.
Zweig commits a suicide after he finished this work (1942), he stay in "World of Yesterday".

Short stories in the classical tradition, 13 Sep 2008
This collection of four stories, reflects the imminent tragedy of Zweig's life (he committed suicide in 1942, believing that the Nazi regime were about to win the war), for they all end in a suicide, causing the reader to wonder how far Zweig had conditioned himself to the thought of death by his own hand in the years leading up to his own demise. In reading this I was reminded of W G Sebald's book The Emigrants, in which his characters also take their own lives.

The stories are rich with understanding of people under pressure. Zweig was a master of describing the agonies of people beset by a burning conscience, the pain of a thwarted desire to return to loved ones, the pain of unrequited love. His characters are people who feel things more deeply than most, who are unable to shrug off emotional pressure or to find escape in diversionary activities. They live on the existential edge of their mental suffering and find no balm in the consolation of friendship or the beauties of nature. The stories serve as a reminder that tragedy can strike anyone, however settled, particularly those who step outside their settled lives, whether voluntarily, in seeking a better life for themselves, or involuntarily through the effects of war or social disruption.

The subjects of these stories feel things greatly. Where others may be upset, these people are desperate. Where others feel affection for a friend, these feel a passionate force that dominates their lives. Where a mistake has been made, Zweig's characters feel a conscience so great that it drives them to distraction. And yet as the newspapers show every day, these things happen in real life, and perhaps Zweig was more plugged into the realities of emotional extremity than those with more settled minds.

Zweig fans will want to own this book, as indeed would anyone who enjoys the short-story tradition of classical European literature.

Variations on a theme, 12 Jun 2008
Stefan Zweig is a superb story teller, and the four stories in this volume, all ending in the suicide of the principal character, are full of atmospheric descriptions - of character, of landscape, of atmosphere - and of narrative tension. It does not really matter that the first two stories are inherently incredible. In each of these there is a man instantly possessed to the point of madness by an elegant woman, in each case a social superior. Class and race differences play a strong role: in the first case, set in the Dutch East Indies, the wealthy wife of a merchant is superior to a doctor and the white doctor is superior to the natives; in the second the worshipper of the baroness is a waiter. The third story is more credible, and here it is a peasant servant who is devoted to her baronial master.

Zweig's obsession with suicide in these stories of course have a particular poignancy in view of his own suicide, nowhere more so than in the last story, in which a Russian commits suicide far from home. This was written in 1936, two years after he had himself left his native Austria and six years before he ended his own life in a foreign land.

Amok Time, 20 May 2007
The four short, intense stories in this anthology may reveal much about the author, given the pertinent details of the end of Zweig's life. That conclusion may also be far too pat.

Comparisons with Conrad rather flatter Zweig, since Conrad is oddly a much more 'modern' author, despite the fact that Conrad's work is older.

The breathless, almost melodramatic, pace of Amok reminded this reviewer of Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu stories. It is, however, a fine story, full of atmosphere; an expertly rendered depiction of a man who, having failed to fulfil his expectations, let alone his dreams, plummets almost willingly into obsession and despair.

The odd clunky phrase 'white as a sheet', 'dark, black night' may be more the work of the translator. Having said that, Anthea Bell surely does well with the character of Crescenz in Leporella and her rural German accent.

One final note, this little book is nicely produced but turns out to be a little too delicate for those of us forced to do much of our reading out of overnight bags. The edges of the covers wear too easily.

Michael Cope 20/05/07

Contents, 29 Sep 2008
I agree that Zweig is a great short story writer but the title story is not enough information about the contents.
I have read many of his short stories and need to know the contents before I know whether to buy it.I may be duplicating stories I already have.
It would be helpful if this could be done, since at present we dont know what we are offerred beyond the first story.
James Bradley

A true delight, 06 Oct 2006
I read this collection of short stories after reading another translation (Journey by Moonlight, Antal Szerb) and was amazed. Having never enjoyed short stories before (I always found them either superficial or found myself frustrated at finishing a story in which I was just getting interested) I discovered that true literary brilliance transcends these obstacles. In short, this collection is something that will be enjoyed by anyone interested in beautiful writing, acute analysis of human emotions and wonderfully constructed stories. The quality of Pushkin Press books is a bonus; buy one and judge for yourself, it makes reading a good book even better! Letter from an Unknown Woman is definitely the best, and for anyone interested, was made into a wonderful film featuring Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan.

The last Queen of France - an extraordinary perspective, 30 Aug 2007
I suppose we all have a certain opinion on Marie Antoinette.

Traditional histories have portrayed Marie Antoinette as a shallow, weak, and self-indulgent person. Others have turned her into a saint.

In 1933, Stefan Zweig wrote this biography of her in which he argued that the queen achieved greatness during the final years of her life thanks to her extraordinary courage.

Stephan Zweigs's biography is quite extraordinary as it is partly a traditional biography, partly a psychological study and partly a work of high literature. It is demanding to read, but rewarding. It presents a very different view of his woman and Queen. It helps to re-think and re-evaluate this last Queen of France (the last Queen in France was her nice Marie Amelie but as Queen of the French from 1830-1848).

Very Enjoyable and Informative, 12 Dec 2003
I really liked this book as it was very descriptive and gave a very full picture of Marie Antoinette. It also describes very well the events of the French Revolution, particularly from the viewpoint of the royal family. I think this is an excellent book and fuller than some others.

A good read, 19 Jan 2003
I feel the book was not capturing me as much as i would have liked it to. the explanitive style of the author, stefan zweig, in this book: Marie Antointte: the portrate of an average woman, was in some places not as detailed as some of his other books, such as Royal game, or, Confusion. It didnt move my emotions very much except my pity for the citizens of the citizens in france in the 1700's, the time of Louis XVI. all in all i didnt like it very much as i was near the end when i only started getting into it . Hope to read more from Stefan Zweig. James

Deeply moving and intimate novella, 11 Jan 2008
The first time I heard of Stefan Zweig was when one of the reviewers on Radio 4's Saturday Review programme chose the novella "The Invisible Collection" as a guest choice. The discussion was so compelling that I ordered the book straight away and was not disappointed. In fact I was even more impressed by the other short story in that book, Buchmendel, that I immediately went and bought every work by Zweig that I could lay my hands on. So far every one of Zweig's stories I have found deeply satisfying but "Confusion" is by far the most moving. It is not so much the story or the plot that affects the readers most but the way Zweig is able to absorb you into the feelings of his characters by the many layers of his tales that often leaves you emotionally drained. He almost always uses the story-within-a-story structure, but to good effect. In "Confusion" the reminiscence of a middle-aged Privy Councillor of an incident in his youth which leaves in him a lasting effect is recounted with so much intimacy and psychological profundity that you feel as though you have been through the same experience as the protagonist.
Thanks to Pushkin Books we can now enjoy the works of a hitherto much neglected writer, in delightfully bound booklets with good quality paper and tastefully designed covers. Some of the book covers are a bit fragile though.

A small masterpiece, 28 Oct 2008
Stefan Zweig has recently been "rediscovered", or perhaps what we mean is "reprinted"? Thank God for that. On this story alone, he rates as one of the great writers of the 20th Century.
Here he gets into the brain of a 12-year-old who is just discovering adult life. He is also discovering that his mother is a sensual female with adulterous leanings. It is wonderfully written and unputdownable. It will make you cry and laugh. And it will re-awaken your delight in clear, clean, wonderfully expressive language and an author who is a master at telling a story and revealing emotions. Don't read this review, read the book, and move on to his other books. He is a master, perhaps a genius.

A novella by a great and subtle story-teller, 14 Oct 2008
We must be grateful to the Pushkin Press for publishing a series of novellas by the wonderful Stefan Zweig, even if the cover price for these little gems of not much more than a hundred pages is a bit steep. But then, in extenuation, this and some of the other volumes have been newly and brilliantly translated by Anthea Bell.

We are in Zweig country. The scenery is wonderfully conveyed in the opening pages. The story is set in the eroticized atmosphere at the end of the Habsburg Empire. There are three characters: a suave baron, on holiday at a hotel, who is an accomplished, cold and determined seducer; an elegant woman who is his more than half-willing prey; and her lonely twelve-year-old son Edgar. The baron first opens his campaign by befriending the boy. Edgar responds passionately to the baron's apparent interest in him, but then he discovers, first with bewilderment and then with rage, that he is in fact de trop. We have to accept that the sheltered Edgar is more innocent than a twelve-year old boy would be today. He guesses that the adults are keeping something from him, but he cannot work out what that secret might be. But he takes his revenge by making sure that he would continue to be de trop, since this was obviously embarrassing and inhibiting them both.

I must not reveal the rest of the story; but it is tense and moving, and Edgar veers back and forth between dependent childhood and the first frightening steps of independence.

The thoughts of all three characters are described with the amplitude and subtlety that is characteristic of this very great writer.


A dark, gripping book, 22 Apr 2007
I first read Chess: A Novel, in High School and I have loved it ever since. It is extremely difficult to put it down as it delves so much into the human psyche and the power to survive, the need to focus on something, anything, to still find a purpose in life. What makes this book even more interesting is that, if my memories are right, this book was written before the end of the second world war, but also that Stefan Zweig committed suicide not long after writing this book. It is quite small and quickly read, so if you fancy an excellent quick read which will really make you think, don't look any further.

Gripping novella by a master storyteller, 01 Mar 2006
This is a little gem of a book. I was intrigued the moment I read the blurb and I wasn't disappointed. This is a compelling story told by a master storyteller. The book was written in 1942 while the author was in exile in Brazil. It was completed just days before he committed suicide.

The story centres around an eccentric character who, despite lack of any discernible intellectual prowess, turns out to be a master chess player. On board a ship to Buenos Aires he is challenged to a game by some of the passengers who are curious about his character. All opponents are duly overcome until a mysterious man steps forward to prompt one of the players and it becomes clear that his grasp of the game is enough to defeat the grandmaster. We are then taken into the back story of this character and the secret behind his abilities at the chess board. To say that this is a page turner is a serious understatement. I challenge anyone not to finish it in one go.

breathtaking, 20 Dec 2007
fantastic book and great review by the gentleman from serbia - particularly as regards the harry potter. It is truly mindblowingly, heartrendingly tragic that a non-entity writing about goblins and magic wands can auction off one of her manuscripts for 1.7 million pounds, whereas Zweig, a genius who teaches us what it is to be human, ended up committing suicide. But that's what people today want: easily read poop....

A remarkable autobiography, 09 Sep 2006
Zweig's aim was to compose an eyewitness report on the first part of the twentieth century in order to save the horrendous truth for the next generations.
It is a shocking report about what he calls the 'Apocalypse': terror, war, revolutions, inflation, famine, epidemics, emigration, the rise of bolshevism, fascism and the most horrific plague of all: nationalism.
He gives us a compelling story of contrasts: the soldiers in the trenches and the arms merchants with their luxury life; English unemployed in five star hotels in Salzburg because they could afford a luxury life on the continent with their unemployment benefits; the brothels and the suicides because of syphilis (Eros Matutina); and the desertion of the Kaiser as a thief in the night at the end of the war, after driving millions of his compatriots into a certain death.
He also relates his encounters with fellow writers like Gide, Rolland, Rilke or Verhaeren.
A moving, outspoken, penetrating and emotional report.
A masterpiece.

BEST OF ALL TIMES, 31 Jan 2003
For me the best book of all times. Zweig "World of Yesterday" is an unforgettable classic, witch should be mandatory in any high school. The best-selling writer in "yesterday world", world of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Mann and any other great writers, he could be happy that his work is not granted in "today world", world of Harry Potter, and similar books.
This book is much more then autobiography, it's a story of one time, it's a vivid, moving and nostalgic portrayal of Europe before wars, it's a story about intellectual brotherhood witch tried to prevent nationalistic madness that destroyed the Europe and the World, twice.
It is a story about what Zweig calls the "Apocalypse": war, revolutions, inflation, famine, epidemics, emigration, the rise of bolshevism, fascism and the most horrific of all: nationalism.
Zweig commits a suicide after he finished this work (1942), he stay in "World of Yesterday".

Short stories in the classical tradition, 13 Sep 2008
This collection of four stories, reflects the imminent tragedy of Zweig's life (he committed suicide in 1942, believing that the Nazi regime were about to win the war), for they all end in a suicide, causing the reader to wonder how far Zweig had conditioned himself to the thought of death by his own hand in the years leading up to his own demise. In reading this I was reminded of W G Sebald's book The Emigrants, in which his characters also take their own lives.

The stories are rich with understanding of people under pressure. Zweig was a master of describing the agonies of people beset by a burning conscience, the pain of a thwarted desire to return to loved ones, the pain of unrequited love. His characters are people who feel things more deeply than most, who are unable to shrug off emotional pressure or to find escape in diversionary activities. They live on the existential edge of their mental suffering and find no balm in the consolation of friendship or the beauties of nature. The stories serve as a reminder that tragedy can strike anyone, however settled, particularly those who step outside their settled lives, whether voluntarily, in seeking a better life for themselves, or involuntarily through the effects of war or social disruption.

The subjects of these stories feel things greatly. Where others may be upset, these people are desperate. Where others feel affection for a friend, these feel a passionate force that dominates their lives. Where a mistake has been made, Zweig's characters feel a conscience so great that it drives them to distraction. And yet as the newspapers show every day, these things happen in real life, and perhaps Zweig was more plugged into the realities of emotional extremity than those with more settled minds.

Zweig fans will want to own this book, as indeed would anyone who enjoys the short-story tradition of classical European literature.

Variations on a theme, 12 Jun 2008
Stefan Zweig is a superb story teller, and the four stories in this volume, all ending in the suicide of the principal character, are full of atmospheric descriptions - of character, of landscape, of atmosphere - and of narrative tension. It does not really matter that the first two stories are inherently incredible. In each of these there is a man instantly possessed to the point of madness by an elegant woman, in each case a social superior. Class and race differences play a strong role: in the first case, set in the Dutch East Indies, the wealthy wife of a merchant is superior to a doctor and the white doctor is superior to the natives; in the second the worshipper of the baroness is a waiter. The third story is more credible, and here it is a peasant servant who is devoted to her baronial master.

Zweig's obsession with suicide in these stories of course have a particular poignancy in view of his own suicide, nowhere more so than in the last story, in which a Russian commits suicide far from home. This was written in 1936, two years after he had himself left his native Austria and six years before he ended his own life in a foreign land.

Amok Time, 20 May 2007
The four short, intense stories in this anthology may reveal much about the author, given the pertinent details of the end of Zweig's life. That conclusion may also be far too pat.

Comparisons with Conrad rather flatter Zweig, since Conrad is oddly a much more 'modern' author, despite the fact that Conrad's work is older.

The breathless, almost melodramatic, pace of Amok reminded this reviewer of Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu stories. It is, however, a fine story, full of atmosphere; an expertly rendered depiction of a man who, having failed to fulfil his expectations, let alone his dreams, plummets almost willingly into obsession and despair.

The odd clunky phrase 'white as a sheet', 'dark, black night' may be more the work of the translator. Having said that, Anthea Bell surely does well with the character of Crescenz in Leporella and her rural German accent.

One final note, this little book is nicely produced but turns out to be a little too delicate for those of us forced to do much of our reading out of overnight bags. The edges of the covers wear too easily.

Michael Cope 20/05/07

Contents, 29 Sep 2008
I agree that Zweig is a great short story writer but the title story is not enough information about the contents.
I have read many of his short stories and need to know the contents before I know whether to buy it.I may be duplicating stories I already have.
It would be helpful if this could be done, since at present we dont know what we are offerred beyond the first story.
James Bradley

A true delight, 06 Oct 2006
I read this collection of short stories after reading another translation (Journey by Moonlight, Antal Szerb) and was amazed. Having never enjoyed short stories before (I always found them either superficial or found myself frustrated at finishing a story in which I was just getting interested) I discovered that true literary brilliance transcends these obstacles. In short, this collection is something that will be enjoyed by anyone interested in beautiful writing, acute analysis of human emotions and wonderfully constructed stories. The quality of Pushkin Press books is a bonus; buy one and judge for yourself, it makes reading a good book even better! Letter from an Unknown Woman is definitely the best, and for anyone interested, was made into a wonderful film featuring Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan.

The last Queen of France - an extraordinary perspective, 30 Aug 2007
I suppose we all have a certain opinion on Marie Antoinette.

Traditional histories have portrayed Marie Antoinette as a shallow, weak, and self-indulgent person. Others have turned her into a saint.

In 1933, Stefan Zweig wrote this biography of her in which he argued that the queen achieved greatness during the final years of her life thanks to her extraordinary courage.

Stephan Zweigs's biography is quite extraordinary as it is partly a traditional biography, partly a psychological study and partly a work of high literature. It is demanding to read, but rewarding. It presents a very different view of his woman and Queen. It helps to re-think and re-evaluate this last Queen of France (the last Queen in France was her nice Marie Amelie but as Queen of the French from 1830-1848).

Very Enjoyable and Informative, 12 Dec 2003
I really liked this book as it was very descriptive and gave a very full picture of Marie Antoinette. It also describes very well the events of the French Revolution, particularly from the viewpoint of the royal family. I think this is an excellent book and fuller than some others.

A good read, 19 Jan 2003
I feel the book was not capturing me as much as i would have liked it to. the explanitive style of the author, stefan zweig, in this book: Marie Antointte: the portrate of an average woman, was in some places not as detailed as some of his other books, such as Royal game, or, Confusion. It didnt move my emotions very much except my pity for the citizens of the citizens in france in the 1700's, the time of Louis XVI. all in all i didnt like it very much as i was near the end when i only started getting into it . Hope to read more from Stefan Zweig. James

Deeply moving and intimate novella, 11 Jan 2008
The first time I heard of Stefan Zweig was when one of the reviewers on Radio 4's Saturday Review programme chose the novella "The Invisible Collection" as a guest choice. The discussion was so compelling that I ordered the book straight away and was not disappointed. In fact I was even more impressed by the other short story in that book, Buchmendel, that I immediately went and bought every work by Zweig that I could lay my hands on. So far every one of Zweig's stories I have found deeply satisfying but "Confusion" is by far the most moving. It is not so much the story or the plot that affects the readers most but the way Zweig is able to absorb you into the feelings of his characters by the many layers of his tales that often leaves you emotionally drained. He almost always uses the story-within-a-story structure, but to good effect. In "Confusion" the reminiscence of a middle-aged Privy Councillor of an incident in his youth which leaves in him a lasting effect is recounted with so much intimacy and psychological profundity that you feel as though you have been through the same experience as the protagonist.
Thanks to Pushkin Books we can now enjoy the works of a hitherto much neglected writer, in delightfully bound booklets with good quality paper and tastefully designed covers. Some of the book covers are a bit fragile though.

You will think about your own decisive moments..., 09 Mar 2002
This book's original title in German is "Sternstunden der Menschheit" which means star hours of humanity. I liked this book very much because it shows how important events even moments changed the direction of history and lives of men. Conquer of Constantinople, the defeat of French army during Napoleonic era are examples for historic moments whereas the rush to gold in California destroying a wealthy man's empire, composing the Marseillian march and polar expedition are extreme examples for success or demise of a man's life.
The appealing thing is that Stefan Zweig narrates all these historic events in the taste of fluent stories. You cannot resist developing emphaty with the characters and thinking of the decisive moments in your own life!

A small masterpiece, 28 Oct 2008
Stefan Zweig has recently been "rediscovered", or perhaps what we mean is "reprinted"? Thank God for that. On this story alone, he rates as one of the great writers of the 20th Century.
Here he gets into the brain of a 12-year-old who is just discovering adult life. He is also discovering that his mother is a sensual female with adulterous leanings. It is wonderfully written and unputdownable. It will make you cry and laugh. And it will re-awaken your delight in clear, clean, wonderfully expressive language and an author who is a master at telling a story and revealing emotions. Don't read this review, read the book, and move on to his other books. He is a master, perhaps a genius.

A novella by a great and subtle story-teller, 14 Oct 2008
We must be grateful to the Pushkin Press for publishing a series of novellas by the wonderful Stefan Zweig, even if the cover price for these little gems of not much more than a hundred pages is a bit steep. But then, in extenuation, this and some of the other volumes have been newly and brilliantly translated by Anthea Bell.

We are in Zweig country. The scenery is wonderfully conveyed in the opening pages. The story is set in the eroticized atmosphere at the end of the Habsburg Empire. There are three characters: a suave baron, on holiday at a hotel, who is an accomplished, cold and determined seducer; an elegant woman who is his more than half-willing prey; and her lonely twelve-year-old son Edgar. The baron first opens his campaign by befriending the boy. Edgar responds passionately to the baron's apparent interest in him, but then he discovers, first with bewilderment and then with rage, that he is in fact de trop. We have to accept that the sheltered Edgar is more innocent than a twelve-year old boy would be today. He guesses that the adults are keeping something from him, but he cannot work out what that secret might be. But he takes his revenge by making sure that he would continue to be de trop, since this was obviously embarrassing and inhibiting them both.

I must not reveal the rest of the story; but it is tense and moving, and Edgar veers back and forth between dependent childhood and the first frightening steps of independence.

The thoughts of all three characters are described with the amplitude and subtlety that is characteristic of this very great writer.


A dark, gripping book, 22 Apr 2007
I first read Chess: A Novel, in High School and I have loved it ever since. It is extremely difficult to put it down as it delves so much into the human psyche and the power to survive, the need to focus on something, anything, to still find a purpose in life. What makes this book even more interesting is that, if my memories are right, this book was written before the end of the second world war, but also that Stefan Zweig committed suicide not long after writing this book. It is quite small and quickly read, so if you fancy an excellent quick read which will really make you think, don't look any further.

Gripping novella by a master storyteller, 01 Mar 2006
This is a little gem of a book. I was intrigued the moment I read the blurb and I wasn't disappointed. This is a compelling story told by a master storyteller. The book was written in 1942 while the author was in exile in Brazil. It was completed just days before he committed suicide.

The story centres around an eccentric character who, despite lack of any discernible intellectual prowess, turns out to be a master chess player. On board a ship to Buenos Aires he is challenged to a game by some of the passengers who are curious about his character. All opponents are duly overcome until a mysterious man steps forward to prompt one of the players and it becomes clear that his grasp of the game is enough to defeat the grandmaster. We are then taken into the back story of this character and the secret behind his abilities at the chess board. To say that this is a page turner is a serious understatement. I challenge anyone not to finish it in one go.

breathtaking, 20 Dec 2007
fantastic book and great review by the gentleman from serbia - particularly as regards the harry potter. It is truly mindblowingly, heartrendingly tragic that a non-entity writing about goblins and magic wands can auction off one of her manuscripts for 1.7 million pounds, whereas Zweig, a genius who teaches us what it is to be human, ended up committing suicide. But that's what people today want: easily read poop....

A remarkable autobiography, 09 Sep 2006
Zweig's aim was to compose an eyewitness report on the first part of the twentieth century in order to save the horrendous truth for the next generations.
It is a shocking report about what he calls the 'Apocalypse': terror, war, revolutions, inflation, famine, epidemics, emigration, the rise of bolshevism, fascism and the most horrific plague of all: nationalism.
He gives us a compelling story o