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Wes Anderson on Stefan Zweig: "I had never heard of Zweig...when I just more or less by chance bought a copy of Beware of Pity. I loved this first book. I also read the The Post-Office Girl. The Grand Budapest Hotel has elements that were sort of stolen from both these books. Two characters in our story are vaguely meant to represent Zweig himself — our “Author” character, played by Tom Wilkinson, and the theoretically fictionalised version of himself, played by Jude Law. But, in fact, M. Gustave, the main character who is played by Ralph Fiennes, is modelled significantly on Zweig as well." The post-office girl is Christine, who looks after her ailing mother and toils in a provincial Austrian post office in the years just after the Great War. One afternoon, as she is dozing among the official forms and stamps, a telegraph arrives addressed to her. It is from her rich aunt, who lives in America and writes requesting that Christine join her and her husband in a Swiss Alpine resort. After a dizzying train ride, Christine finds herself at the top of the world, enjoying a life of privilege that she had never imagined. But Christine’s aunt drops her as abruptly as she picked her up, and soon the young woman is back at the provincial post office, consumed with disappointment and bitterness. Then she meets Ferdinand, a wounded but eloquent war veteran who is able to give voice to the disaffection of his generation. Christine’s and Ferdinand’s lives spiral downward, before Ferdinand comes up with a plan which will be either their salvation or their doom. Never before published in English, this extraordinary book is an unexpected and haunting foray into noir fiction by one of the masters of the psychological novel.

A new collection of essays by Stefan Zweig: tributes to the great artists and thinkers of the Europe of his day Stefan Zweig was one of the twentieth century's greatest authors and a tireless champion of freedom, tolerance and friendship across borders. Encounters and Destinies collects his most impassioned and moving tributes to his many illustrious friends and peers: literary, philosophical and artistic luminaries from across the Old Europe that Zweig loved so much, and which he grieved to see so cruelly destroyed by two world wars. Including pieces on Rainer Maria Rilke, Marcel Proust, Sigmund Freud, Maxim Gorky and Arturo Toscanini, this essential collection is also Zweig's tribute to the ideal of friendship: an ideal he clung to as the world he knew was torn apart.

This classic Austrian novella paints a deeply moving portrait of a woman whose quest for passion and purpose comes at a steep price The less I felt in myself, the more strongly I was drawn to those places where the whirligig of life spins most rapidly. So begins an extraordinary day in the life of Mrs C—recently bereaved and searching for excitement and meaning. Drawn to the bright lights of a casino, and the passion of a desperate stranger, she discovers a purpose once again but at what cost? In this vivid and moving tale of a compassionate woman, and her defining experience, Zweig explores the power of intense love, overwhelming loneliness and regret that can last for a lifetime.

A new pocket edition of this Conradian tale of maddening desire, from the master of the novella On a sweltering ocean-liner travelling from India to Europe a passenger tells his story: the tale of a doctor in the Dutch East Indies torn between his duty and the pull of his emotions; a tale of power and desire, pride and shame and a headlong flight into folly. This is one the most intense and incisive of the novellas which brought Stefan Zweig to worldwide fame.

Chess Story, also known as The Royal Game, is the Austrian master Stefan Zweig's final achievement, completed in Brazilian exile and sent off to his American publisher only days before his suicide in 1942. It is the only story in which Zweig looks at Nazism, and he does so with characteristic emphasis on the psychological. Travelers by ship from New York to Buenos Aires find that on board with them is the world champion of chess, an arrogant and unfriendly man. They come together to try their skills against him and are soundly defeated. Then a mysterious passenger steps forward to advise them and their fortunes change. How he came to possess his extraordinary grasp of the game of chess and at what cost lie at the heart of Zweig's story. This new translation of Chess Story brings out the work's unusual mixture of high suspense and poignant reflection.

A doctor in the Dutch East Indies torn between his medical duty to help and his own mixed emotions; a middle-aged maidservant whose devotion to her master leads her to commit a terrible act; a hotel waiter whose love for an unapproachable aristocratic beauty culminates in an almost lyrical death and a prisoner-of-war longing to be home again in Russia. In these four stories, Stefan Zweig shows his gift for the acute analysis of emotional dilemmas. His four tragic and moving cameos of the human condition are played out against cosmopolitan and colonial backgrounds in the first half of the twentieth century.

An NYRB Classics Original Stefan Zweig was particularly drawn to the novella, and Confusion, a rigorous and yet transporting dramatization of the conflict between the heart and the mind, is among his supreme achievements in the form. A young man who is rapidly going to the dogs in Berlin is packed off by his father to a university in a sleepy provincial town. There a brilliant lecture awakens in him a wild passion for learning—as well as a peculiarly intense fascination with the graying professor who gave the talk. The student grows close to the professor, be­coming a regular visitor to the apartment he shares with his much younger wife. He takes it upon himself to urge his teacher to finish the great work of scholarship that he has been laboring at for years and even offers to help him in any way he can. The professor welcomes the young man’s attentions, at least on some days. On others, he rages without apparent reason or turns away from his disciple with cold scorn. The young man is baffled, wounded. He cannot understand. But the wife understands. She understands perfectly. And one way or another she will help him to understand too.

In 'The Burning Secret,' Stefan Zweig masterfully crafts a narrative that probes the depths of human desire and the grim consequences of deception. The novella is a classic exposition of Zweig's psychological acumen, set against the backdrop of an Austro-Hungarian resort before the Great War. His narrative moves with an irresistible cadence, delving into the complicated web of emotions between a young baron, an impressionable boy, and his alluring mother. The literary style is emblematic of Zweig's oeuvre, enveloped in rich descriptive prose that not only offers a window into the characters' souls but also reflects the broader malaise and decadence of a fading empire. This work finds relevance amidst the canon of early 20th-century European literature, illuminating the social mores and inner human conflicts of the period with dexterous precision.nStefan Zweig, an Austrian writer, was a prominent figure in the literary world of the early 1900s, whose works have enthralled readers with their depth and introspection. His ability to dissect the minutiae of the human spirit stemmed from his own profound experiences, often mirrored in the themes he explored. Zweig was a man deeply affected by the tumultuous history unfolding around him, and 'The Burning Secret' can be viewed as an intimate exploration of the clandestine emotions and complex relationships that resonate throughout his writing. The personal and historical upheavals Zweig faced undoubtedly infused his work with a poignant sense of urgency, longing, and a search for understanding.n'The Burning Secret' is a testament to Zweig's enduring legacy and is recommended for those who seek a psychological journey through the labyrinth of human yearnings and societal dictates. Readers with a penchant for intricate character development, set within a context that breathes life into historical subtleties, will find themselves captured by Zweig's eloquent prose. This edition, reproduced with care by DigiCat Publishing, provides an excellent opportunity for both the literary aficionado and the casual reader to rediscover an author whose insights into our collective psyche remain as relevant today as when they were first penned.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Old Book Peddler and other tales for bibliophiles" by Stefan Zweig. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.