A young Austrian woman, Christine, toils away in a provincial post office when, out of the blue, a telegram arrives inviting her to join an American aunt she's never known in a fashionable Swiss resort. She accepts and is swept up into a world of almost inconceivable wealth and unleashed desire. She feels herself utterly transformed.

After nine years of separation from his native country because of the First World War, Louis finally sets foot in Austria and meets the woman he had been in love with. Previously divided by class and wealth, both are now married, and they must find out whether their love could survive the hardships, betrayals and the lapse of time.

On a cruiseship bound for Buenos Aires, a passenger challenges the world chess champion to a match. He accepts with a sneer. The chess board is surrounded. At first, the challenger crumbles before the mind of the master. But then, a voice begins to whisper suggestions. The speaker is wholly unknown. But somehow, he is also entirely formidable.

In 1913, a young second lieutenant discovers the terrible dangers of pity and eventually flees from them into the battlefield. His involvement begins with a faux pas: he had no idea the girl was lame when he asked her to dance.

Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) was a poet, novelist, and dramatist, but it was his biographies that expressed his full genius, recreating for his international audience the Elizabethan age, the French Revolution, the great days of voyages and discoveries. This autobiography tells the stories of Freud, Yeats, Borgese, Pirandello, and Gorky, among others.

Features two of Stefan Zweig's novellas. Twenty-four Hours in the Life of a Woman is the story of an English widow who travels through Europe to escape loneliness and boredom. The Royal Game occurs on a cruise ship bound for Buenos Aires, where an encounter takes place between the reigning world chess champion and an unknown passenger.

Presents 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. This is a tale of violence, unrequited passion, and a marriage that is no true marriage.

Offers a collection of four stories that analyse emotional dilemmas: a doctor torn between his medical duty and his own mixed emotions; a maidservant whose devotion to her master leads her to commit a terrible act; a hotel waiter in love with an aristocratic beauty; and a First World War POW longing to be home again in Russia.

Presents five of Stefan Zweig's most compelling novellas, including Fantastic Night , The Invisible Collection , Buchmendel , Letter from an Unknown Woman , and The Fowler Snared .

Explores the complex hidden recesses of emotion. In 1913, a young lieutenant discovers the dangers of pity, and flees from them into the battlefield. His involvement begins with a faux pas. This novel is a realisation of the torment of betrayal of honour and love, set against the background of the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

In this newly available English translation the reader rediscovers the essential humanist preoccupations of the author of Amok and Twenty-four Hours in the Life of a Woman: his compassion towards human suffering, the horror of war and his faith in idealism, generosity, love - values that can, in an instant, illuminate an entire existence.

In the autumn of his days, a privy councillor contemplates his past, looking back at the key moments in his life. He remembers sharing a lodging with a professor and his wife and a close friendship is formed. The professor, however harbours a dark secret which changes both men forever.