Twilight and Moonbeam Alley (Pushkin Collection) - Softcover

Zweig, Stefan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 190128557X ISBN 13: 9781901285574

Publisher: Pushkin Press, 2006

Synopsis

A French country estate, and a dive bar in the sailors district of a German port provide the backdrop for these two exquisite stories

'Twilight' is the story of a fashionable lady who is banished from Versailles by the king. She tries to make the best of living on her country estate, but although she entertains lovers and friends from Paris, she comes to find it intolerable. Life at court, for all its essential emptiness, was the only thing that gave her existence meaning, and she moves inexorably towards suicide. In 'Moonbeam Alley', a traveller delayed in a French port explores the sailors' quarter. Enticed by a voice singing an aria, to a bar near the harbour, he learns the story of those who run it and frequent it: a tale of violence, unrequited passion, and a marriage that is no true marriage.

Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) was born in Vienna, into a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family. He studied in Berlin and Vienna and was first known as a poet and translator, then as a biographer. Zweig travelled widely, living in Salzburg between the wars, and was an international bestseller with a string of hugely popular novellas including Letter from an Unknown Woman, Amok and Fear.

In 1934, with the rise of Nazism, he moved to London, where he wrote his only novel Beware of Pity. He later moved on to Bath, taking British citizenship after the outbreak of the Second World War. With the fall of France in 1940 Zweig left Britain for New York, before settling in Brazil, where in 1942 he and his wife were found dead in an apparent double suicide.

Much of his work is available from Pushkin Press.

About this title

Review

"What did Zweig have that brought him the fanatical devotion of millions of readers, the admiration of Herman Hesse, the invitation to give the eulogy at the funeral of Sigmund Freud? To learn that, we would have to have a biography that illuminated all aspects of his work, that read all of his books, and that challenged, rather than accepted, the apparent modesty of his statements about his life and work." - Benjamin Moser, Bookforum

"Zweig's readability made him one of the most popular writers of the early twentieth century all over the world, with translations into thirty languages. His lives of Mary Stuart and Marie Antoinette were international bestsellers." -- Julie Kavanagh, The Economist Intelligent Life

"Zweig's accumulated historical and cultural studies, whether in essay or monograph form, remain a body of achievement almost too impressive to take in... Full-sized books on Marie-Antoinette, Mary Stuart, and Magellan were international best sellers." -- Clive James, Cultural Amnesia

"Touching and delightful. Those adjectives are not meant as faint praise. Zweig may be especially appealing now because rather than being a progenitor of big ideas, he was a serious entertainer, and an ardent and careful observer of habits, foibles, passions and mistakes." -- A.O. Scott, The New York Times

"Stefan Zweig cherished the everyday imperfections and frustrated aspirations of the men and women he analysed with such affection and understanding." -- Paul Bailey, Times Literary Supplement

About the Author

Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) was born in Vienna, into a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family. He studied in Berlin and Vienna and was first known as a poet and translator, then as a biographer. Zweig travelled widely, living in Salzburg between the wars, and was an international bestseller with a string of hugely popular novellas including Letter from an Unknown Woman, Amok and Fear.

In 1934, with the rise of Nazism, he moved to London, where he wrote his only novel Beware of Pity. He later moved on to Bath, taking British citizenship after the outbreak of the Second World War. With the fall of France in 1940 Zweig left Britain for New York, before settling in Brazil, where in 1942 he and his wife were found dead in an apparent double suicide.

Much of his work is available from Pushkin Press.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pushkin Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 190128557X
• ISBN 13: 9781901285574
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 104