THE 27 STEFAN ZWEIG TEXTS ON THIS SITE

An elegant lady relaxing on the terrace of her magnificent mansion on the Riviera is called upon by a man she had known in her younger days. About to leave for America, he has come to ask her for an explanation of why she had decided to marry into money rather than take her chances with him back then.
Stefan Zweig’s first published story, a remarkable achievement by the 19-year-old author.
Translated specially for this site.
(2,100 words)
An e-book, with the original text in an (…)

A young woman in an elegant building in the most select part of Vienna is quite beside herself with annoyance because the new gown that she has ordered for Derby Day has failed to arrive on time, obliging her to miss the fancy event. Finally she decides to put on her oldest dress and just go out for a walk on that lovely spring day. When she’s admired by a young student who finally works up the courage to ask if he might accompany her she accepts out of a spirit of adventure, and they have a (…)

Three dramatic short stories by the author of Letter From an Unknown Woman :
1. In the Snow (1901) – Word comes to a Jewish community celebrating Hanukah in a small town in medieval Germany that a large group of religious fanatics are on their way with hate in their hearts and blood on their hands (4,400 words);
2. The Cross (1906) – A French officer is cut off behind enemy lines after an ambush during the Napoleonic War in Spain and desperately tries to survive amid the immeasurable (…)

Erika Ewald is a young, lonely and innocent young woman who falls increasingly under the charm of a very gifted violinist whom she accompanies on the piano, and finally things come to a brink during a Sunday outing to the outskirts of Vienna where the owner of an establishment where they stop for refreshments politely addresses her as the violinist’s bride, that they both realise she almost is.
An intense and very convincing exploration of the profound emotional, psychological and sensual (…)

A young medical student comes to Vienna and has enormous difficulties adjusting to life in the big city, not only because he’s still under-developed, immature and shy but also because he’s quite overwhelmed by the force of the extroverted and quite domineering older student in the next room in his dwelling, not to speak of the latter’s outspoken and somewhat aggressive girlfriend. But one day the landlady comes to him in tears pleading for his help as a medical student to save her young (…)

A fifteen-year-old English boy on holiday in the grand Scottish castle of his relatives wanders into the grounds late at night, fascinated by its somewhat eerie atmosphere. Where he’s abruptly accosted in the dark by a passionate young woman who vigorously embraces him before fleeing. Unable to identify his mysterious aggressor he lurks under the same tree again the next night and has another encounter with the ghostly girl, and thereafter desperately seeks to identify the culprit and to (…)

In in the celebrated Austrian mountain resort of Semmering an experienced ladies’ man sets his sights on an attractive woman who has come there with her sickly twelve-year-old son for a cure, and cleverly first strikes up a friendship with the boy as a way to his mother’s heart. This stratagem is brilliantly successful, but the baron makes the mistake of ignoring the boy from then on.
This 23,000-word novella is one of Stefan Zweig’s best-known works – with Letter From an Unknown Woman (…)

A well-to-do married woman who has faulted with a seductive young pianist is aggressively blackmailed by a coarse young woman who threatens to denounce her to her husband. The blackmail is increasingly successful, the lady is overcome with fear and anguish and finally she sees only one fatal way out of her dilemma.
One of the major works of the celebrated author of Letter From an Unknown Woman.
(22,800 words)
Translated specially for this site. An e-book, with the original text in an (…)

The great Viennese-Austrian author Stefan Zweig was a prolific writer of short stories, novelettes, novellas, historical studies, essays, memoirs, and letters – as well as several plays, two books of poetry, an opera libretto and one novel .
In this famous story, often filmed, a well-known novelist returns home after a holiday in the mountains to find a long letter awaiting him there from a woman he had once known but quite forgotten. She on the other hand has never forgotten him, for good (…)

A well-off and rather idle reserve officer in Vienna in June 1913 quite by hazard finds himself at the races in the Prater, the great Viennese public park, and watches the excited behaviour of the crowd during the races with a detached eye. His day and his whole existence are thrown head over heels when he starts paying attention to an alluring person next to him and he rapidly goes through a major life-changing experience.
A memorable account of the glories of a summer pre-WW1 Viennese (…)