Stefan Zweig (AUT)

Stefan Zweig (German: [tsvaɪk]; November 28, 1881 – February 22, 1942) was an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most popular writers in the world.

Zweig was a prominent writer in the 1920s and 1930s, befriending Arthur Schnitzler and Sigmund Freud. He was extremely popular in the United States, South America and Europe, and remains so in continental Europe; however, he was largely ignored by the British public, and his fame in America has since dwindled. Since the 1990s there has been an effort on the part of several publishers (notably Pushkin Press and The New York Review of Books) to get Zweig back into print in English. Plunkett Lake Press Ebooks has begun to publish electronic versions of his non-fiction as well.

Criticism over his oeuvre is severely divided between some English-speaking critics, who despise his literary style as poor, lightweight and superficial, and some of those more attached to the European tradition, who praise his humanism, simplicity and effective style.

Zweig is best known for his novellas (notably The Royal Game, Amok, and Letter from an Unknown Woman – which was filmed in 1948 by Max Ophüls), novels (Beware of Pity, Confusion of Feelings, and the posthumously published The Post Office Girl) and biographies (notably Erasmus of Rotterdam, Conqueror of the Seas: The Story of Magellan, and Mary, Queen of Scotland and the Isles and also posthumously published, Balzac). At one time his works were published without his consent in English under the pseudonym "Stephen Branch" (a translation of his real name) when anti-German sentiment was running high. His biography of Queen Marie-Antoinette was later adapted as a Hollywood movie, starring the actress Norma Shearer in the title role.

Zweig's autobiography, The World of Yesterday, was completed in 1942 on the day before he committed suicide. It has been widely discussed as a record of "what it meant to be alive between 1881 and 1942" in central Europe; the book has attracted both critical praise and hostile dismissal.

Zweig enjoyed a close association with Richard Strauss, and provided the libretto for Die schweigsame Frau (The Silent Woman). Strauss famously defied the Nazi regime by refusing to sanction the removal of Zweig's name from the programme for the work's première on June 24, 1935 in Dresden. As a result, Goebbels refused to attend as planned, and the opera was banned after three performances. Zweig later collaborated with Joseph Gregor, to provide Strauss with the libretto for one other opera, Daphne, in 1937. At least one other work by Zweig received a musical setting: the pianist and composer Henry Jolles, who like Zweig had fled to Brazil to escape the Nazis, composed a song, "Último poema de Stefan Zweig", based on "Letztes Gedicht", which Zweig wrote on the occasion of his 60th birthday in November 1941. During his stay in Brazil, Zweig wrote Brasilien, Ein Land der Zukunft (Brazil, Land of the Future) which was an accurate analysis of his newly adopted country and in his book he managed to demonstrate a fair understanding of the Brazilian culture that surrounded him.

Zweig was a passionate collector of manuscripts. There are important Zweig collections at the British Library and at the State University of New York at Fredonia. The British Library's Stefan Zweig Collection was donated to the library by his heirs in May 1986. It specialises in autograph music manuscripts, including works by Bach, Haydn, Wagner, and Mahler. It has been described as "one of the world's greatest collections of autograph manuscripts". One particularly precious item is Mozart's "Verzeichnüß aller meiner Werke" – that is, the composer's own handwritten thematic catalogue of his works.

The 1993–1994 academic year at the College of Europe was named in his honour.

Bibliography

The dates mentioned below are the dates of first publication in German.

Fiction
Forgotten Dreams, 1900 (Original title: Vergessene Träume)
Spring in the Prater, 1900 (Original title: Praterfrühling)
A Loser, 1901 (Original title: Ein Verbummelter)

In the Snow, 1901 (Original title: Im Schnee)
Two Lonely Souls, 1901 (Original title: Zwei Einsame)
The Miracles of Life, 1903 (Original title: Die Wunder des Lebens)
The Love of Erika Ewald, 1904 (Original title: Die Liebe der Erika Ewald)
The Star Over the Forest, 1904 (Original title: Der Stern über dem Walde)
The Fowler Snared, 1906 (Original title: Sommernovellette)
The Governess, 1907 (Original title: Die Governante)
Scarlet Fever, 1908 (Original title: Scharlach)
Twilight, 1910 (Original title: Geschichte eines Unterganges)
A Story Told In Twilight, 1911 (Original title: Geschichte in der Dämmerung)
Burning Secret, 1913 (Original title: Brennendes Geheimnis)
Fear, 1920 (Original title: Angst)
Compulsion, 1920 (Original title: Der Zwang)
The Eyes of My Brother, Forever, 1922 (Original title: Die Augen des ewigen Bruders)
Fantastic Night, 1922 (Original title: Phantastische Nacht)
Letter from an Unknown Woman, 1922 (Original title: Brief einer Unbekannten)
Moonbeam Alley, 1922 (Original title: Die Mondscheingasse)
Amok, 1922 (Original title: Amok) – novella, initially published with several others in Amok. Novellen einer Leidenschaft
The Invisible Collection, 1925 (Original title: Die unsichtbare Sammlung)
Downfall of the Heart, 1927 (Original title: Untergang eines Herzens")
The Invisible Collection see Collected Stories below, (Original title: Die Unsichtbare Sammlung, first published in book form in 'Insel-Almanach auf das Jahr 1927'[23])
The Refugee, 1927 (Original title: Der Flüchtling. Episode vom Genfer See).
Confusion of Feelings or Confusion: The Private Papers of Privy Councillor R. Von D, 1927 (Original title: Verwirrung der Gefühle) – novella initially published in the volume Verwirrung der Gefühle: Drei Novellen
Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman, 1927 (Original title: Vierundzwanzig Stunden aus dem Leben einer Frau) – novella initially published in the volume Verwirrung der Gefühle: Drei Novellen
Buchmendel, 1929 (Original title: Buchmendel)
Short stories, 1930 (Original title: Kleine Chronik. Vier Erzählungen) – includes Buchmendel
Did He Do It?, published between 1935 and 1940 (Original title: War er es?)
Leporella, 1935 (Original title: Leporella)
Collected Stories, 1936 (Original title: Gesammelte Erzählungen) – two volumes of short stories:
1. The Chains (Original title: Die Kette)
2. Kaleidoscope (Original title: Kaleidoskop). Includes: Casual Knowledge of a Craft, Leporella, Fear, Burning Secret, Summer Novella, The Governess, Buchmendel, The Refugee, The Invisible Collection, Fantastic Night and Moonbeam Alley
Incident on Lake Geneva, 1936 (Original title: Episode an Genfer See Revised version of "Der Flüchtung. Episode vom Genfer See" published in 1927)
The Buried Candelabrum, 1936
Beware of Pity, 1939 (Original title: Ungeduld des Herzens) novel
The Royal Game or Chess Story or Chess (Original title: Schachnovelle; Buenos Aires, 1942) – novella written in 1938–41,
Journey into the Past, 1976 (Original title: Widerstand der Wirklichkeit)
Clarissa, 1981 unfinished novel
The Debt Paid Late, 1982 (Original title: Die spät bezahlte Schuld)
The Post Office Girl, 1982 (Original title: Rausch der Verwandlung. Roman aus dem Nachlaß; The Intoxication of Metamorphosis)

Biographies and historical texts

Béatrice Gonzalés-Vangell, Kaddish et Renaissance, La Shoah dans les romans viennois de Schindel, Menasse et Rabinovici, Septentrion, Valenciennes, 2005, 348 pages.
Emile Verhaeren, 1910
Three Masters: Balzac, Dickens, Dostoeffsky, 1920 (Original title: Drei Meister. Balzac – Dickens – Dostojewski. Translated into English by Eden and Cedar Paul and published in 1930 as Three Masters)
Romain Rolland. The Man and His Works, 1921 (Original title: Romain Rolland. Der Mann und das Werk)
Nietzsche, 1925 (Originally published in the volume titled: Der Kampf mit dem Dämon. Hölderlin – Kleist – Nietzsche)
Decisive Moments in History, 1927 (Original title: Sternstunden der Menschheit. Translated into English and published in 1940 as The Tide of Fortune: Twelve Historical Miniatures[24])
Adepts in Self-Portraiture: Casanova, Stendhal, Tolstoy, 1928 (Original title: Drei Dichter ihres Lebens. Casanova – Stendhal – Tolstoi)
Joseph Fouché, 1929 (Original title: Joseph Fouché. Bildnis eines politischen Menschen) Now available as an electronic book
Mental Healers: Franz Mesmer, Mary Baker Eddy, Sigmund Freud, 1932 (Original title: Die Heilung durch den Geist. Mesmer, Mary Baker-Eddy, Freud) Now available as an electronic book.
Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman, 1932 (Original title: Marie Antoinette. Bildnis eines mittleren Charakters) ISBN 4-87187-855-4
Erasmus of Rotterdam, 1934 (Original title: Triumph und Tragik des Erasmus von Rotterdam)
Mary, Queen of Scotland and the Isles or The Queen of Scots, 1935 (Original title: Maria Stuart) ISBN 4-87187-858-9
The Right to Heresy: Castellio against Calvin, 1936 (Original title: Castellio gegen Calvin oder Ein Gewissen gegen die Gewalt)
Conqueror of the Seas: The Story of Magellan, 1938 (Original title: Magellan. Der Mann und seine Tat) ISBN 4-87187-856-2
Amerigo, 1944 (Original title: Amerigo. Geschichte eines historischen Irrtums) – written in 1942, published the day before he died ISBN 4-87187-857-0
Balzac, 1946 – written, as Richard Friedenthal (de) describes in a postscript, by Zweig in the Brazilian summer capital of Petrópolis, without access to the files, notebooks, lists, tables, editions and monographs that Zweig accumulated for many years and that he took with him to Bath, but that he left behind when he went to America. Friedenthal wrote that Balzac "was to be his magnum opus, and he had been working at it for ten years. It was to be a summing up of his own experience as an author and of what life had taught him." Friedenthal claimed that "The book had been finished", though not every chapter was complete; he used a working copy of the manuscript Zweig left behind him to apply "the finishing touches", and Friedenthal rewrote the final chapters (Balzac, translated by William and Dorothy Rose [New York: Viking, 1946], pp. 399, 402).

Plays

Tersites, 1907 (Original title: Tersites)
Das Haus am Meer, 1912
Jeremiah, 1917 (Original title: Jeremias)

Other

The World of Yesterday (Original title: Die Welt von Gestern; Stockholm, 1942) – autobiography
Brazil, Land of the Future (Original title: Brasilien. Ein Land der Zukunft; Bermann-Fischer, Stockholm 1941)
Journeys (Original title: Auf Reisen; Zurich, 1976); collection of essays

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Zweig