The folk tales collected by the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were first published in 1812–15, and in many more editions up to the deaths of the brothers around 1860. While no one knows where the tales first came from; features of many are found in myths from all over the world. They were passed on for centuries in the oral tradition, until at last collectors began recording them in print for the world of today, where we still respond to them.This volume contains a small but repr...

Millions of people in a nation are necessary for a single genius to arise, millions of tedious hours must pass before a truly historic shooting star of humanity appears in the sky.Five vivid dramatizations of some of the most pivotal episodes in human history, from the Discovery of the Pacific to the composition of the Marseillaise, bringing the past to life in brilliant technicolor.Contents:ForewordFlight into Immortali...

Stefan Zweig's memoir The World of Yesterday, (Die Welt von Gestern) is a unique love letter to the lost world of pre-war Europe The famous autobiography is published by Pushkin Press, with a cover designed by David Pearson and Clare Skeats. Translated by the award-winning Anthea Bell. Stefan Zweig's memoir, The World of Yesterday recalls the golden age of pre-war Europe its seeming permanence, its promise and its devastating fall. Through the story of his life, and his relationships with ...

Depicting a young woman's life in Nazi Germany, a masterpiece from the author of Child of All Nations'I cannot think of anything else that conjures up so powerfully the atmosphere of a nation turned insane' Sunday TelegraphNineteen-year-old Sanna just wants to drink her beer in peace, but that's difficult when Hitler has come to town and his motorcade is blocking the streets of Frankfurt. What's more, her best friend Gerti...

One of the twentieth century's great humanists and a hugely popular fiction writer, Stefan Zweig's historical works bring the past to life in brilliant Technicolor. This collection contains ten typically breathless and erudite dramatizations of some of the most tense and important episodes in human history.From General Grouchy's failure to intervene at Waterloo, to the miraculous resurrection of George Frideric Handel, Zweig's selection is idiosyncratic, fascinating and as always h...

Four unforgettable tales of love, devotion, madness and warA 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;a prisoner-of-war longing to be home again in Russia. These four tragic and moving cameos of the human condition ...

Perfectly paced and brimming with passion - twenty-two tales from a master storyteller of the twentieth centuryIn this indispensable collection of short stories, Stefan Zweig captures the best and worst of human nature. At the heart of these tales lies passion - from a humble waiter's love for an aristocratic guest to an exiled Frenchwoman's longing for the glitter of court life, and a bookseller's fatal lust for print in wartime Vienna.Translated by the aw...

"A perfect translation of a near-perfect novella of bourgeois adultery and guilt." - Jonathan Bate, Times Literary Supplement, Book of the Year 2010Finding her comfortable bourgeois existence as wife and mother predictable after eight years of marriage, Irene Wagner brings a little excitement into it by starting an affair with a rising young pianist. Her lover's former mistress begins blackmailing her, threatening to give her secret away to her husband. Irene is soon in th...

'K. kept feeling that he had lost himself, or was further away in a strange land than anyone had ever been before' A remote village covered almost permanently in snow and dominated by a castle and its staff of dictatorial, sexually predatory bureaucrats - this is the setting for Kafka's story about a man seeking both acceptance in the village and access to the castle. Kafka breaks new ground in evoking a dense village community fraught with tensions, and recounting an ofte...

A memoir of brutality, heroism and personal discovery from Europe's dark heart, revealing one of the most extraordinary untold stories of the Second World WarIn the spring of 1945, at Rechnitz on the Austrian-Hungarian border, not far from the front lines of the advancing Red Army, Countess Margit Batthyany gave a party in her mansion. The war was almost over, and the German aristocrats and SS officers dancing and drinking knew it was lost. Late that night, they wa...

"Prose that penetrates the reader's mind like speed, fast paced, without an ounce of fat."—WeltwocheHe's found five pounds of top quality Peruvian cocaine in a suit-case. Pursued by the police and drug traffickers the luckless Blum falls prey to the frenzied paranoia of the cocaine addict and dealer. This is a fast-paced thriller written with acerbic humour, a hardboiled evocation of drug-fuelled existence and a penetrating observation of those at the edge of German society.

Young lawyer Alex Zabel defends industrialist Herbert Klofft in a case for wrongful dismissal being brought against him by his former employee and mistress. She is thirty-four, he seventy-eight, a despot, now wheelchair bound and dying of cancer. Alex must deal with a hopeless case, his growing empathy with a repulsive client and his sexual attraction to Klofft's elderly wife.