I am actually only half way through the book right now but like everything Zweig writes, it is riveting. Caution: some readers may be irritated by its political/cultural /religious insensitivities. For example, he keeps referring to Mohammedans rather than Muslims and refers to worshippers of Mohammed. This is, I am sure, extremely irritating to followers of Islam who of course worship no God but Allah. Try to remember that the book was written in the 1930s--Zweig is not a bigot, just not up to current standards of political correctness. Mohammedan was a common western term of his day--(although speaking of actually worshipping the Prophet is just plain uninformed.)
The first half of the book puts Magellan's voyage in the context of the power struggle between Spain and Portugal, Middle Eastern powers and Italian city states like Venice and Genoa and gives background history on Henry the Navigator and the rise of the great age of European navigation. There is also a lot of detail on Magellan's early days in service to Portugal, his previous voyages, battles , and adventures. court intrigues, etc. I am now at the point where he has begun his epic voyage faced before he even started with rumors of potential betrayal and mutiny.

This book is not outstanding just because it gives valuable information about the historical events or characters but also for describing events like a story-teller. The book has 12 topics for different historical characters or events. All of them are marvelous. But especially, the part that describe the death of Tolstoy as a drama just made me write this review. This is the best historical book that I have ever read.

In this short book, Zweig sketches an impressive portrait of Erasmus as a private and a public person.
Erasmus was an erudite humanist, but a loner (his motto: nulli concedo,...per se).
He should be considered as the first European and a real pacifist ( for him, all conflicts should be solved by negotiation). But he was in no way a proponent of democracy, more a supporter of an oligarchic rule.
His biggest failure was that he couldn't prevent the schism between Catholics and Protestants, although he played a crucial role in the negotiations. The Elector of Saxony, who protected Maarten Luther, asked him his opinion on the latter. But he couldn't give him a clearcut answer.
Erasmus went a long way: "I am against the truth, if it causes dissension".
He was too honest. He grasped that the compulsory selling of indulgences by the Pope was an unforgivable extortion.
In this short text, Zweig tells us the ultimate tragedy of Erasmus' life: on the one hand, his belief in civilization and the power of reason; on the other hand, a world full of dissensions and war.
Zweig writes in an enthusiastic style, full of drama and contrasts.
A simple, but masterful psychological and historical analysis.

"Die Schachnovelle" or "Chess Short Story" is an excellent little book. As far as I am aware, it is one of the few books in modern German "classic" literature that directly deal with the Nazi past (some others are "Mephisto" by Klaus Mann, "The Seventh Cross" by Anna Seghers, and "The Tin Drum" by Guenther Grass). The "Schachnovelle" is the short story of an Austrian gentleman travelling by ship during the time of the Third Reich. This gentleman is chess amateur. By chance, the unbeaten world champion in chess, an arrogent, conceited, unlikeable man, is also on board the ship. The Austrian gentleman passes his time on board watching chess matches between passengers and the chess master. As the Austrian gets drawn into some losing chess matches between himself with a group of passengers and the chess master, an interesting little man appears in the group just in time to offer the playing passengers asounding insight and advice so that the seemingly hopeless match ends a draw. It becomes clear that the mysterious stranger is a chess guru whose knowledge of the game well exceeds that of the champion. However, the stranger visibly suffers when in contact with chess...it absorbs him and possesses him until he exaustingly pulls himself away. The Austrian traveller notices that the stranger is also Austrian and enters into a discussion with him. Here the stranger recounts his haunting story of how he was arrested by the Nazi Gestapo, put in prison and interrogated day after day, suffering under the physical and psychological pressure of the Nazis. He tells how the sole thing he had in his foresaken prison cell was a book on chess stratagies and manouvers that he had managed to steal during his incarceration. He studied this book inside and out, mentally expanded past its examples and played chess in his mind against himself. Though this kept him sane and able to resist the Nazi's treatment, it eventually became excessive and led to a schizophrenic breakdown as his mind was engaged in a chess battle against itself. Thereafter it was necessary for him to avoid chess like a former drug addict must avoid his drug.
The author, Stefan Zweig, is one of Austria's greatest writers. As a man of culture and a jew, he greatly suffered under the Nazi regime; mostly his suffering was psychological and emotional as he saw his beloved Vienna, Austria, and Europe sink into barbarism. He eventually fled to Brazil where he committed suicide towards the end of World War II.

I was 18 years old when I first discovered Stefan Zweig. At that time, I read his famous story "The Royal Game" in which a man is imprisoned and repeatedly interrogated by the Nazis. Before his solitary confinement can drive him utterly mad he steals a book about chess from the pocket of coat hanging in the anteroom where he is waiting for another cross-examination. At first the game keeps his mind occupied but in the end this playing against himself causes him to fall victim to schizophrenia. After he is eventually released from prison he is confronted with chess again on a ship to brazil. The schizophrenia prevailed over him again. I was so impressed by this story that I began to read more and more of Zweig's work: "The Invisible Collection", "The Confusion of Sentiments", "The Burning Secret", "Letter from an Unknown Woman" to mention but a few, as well as some biographical studies about him. But there always remained a certain lingering sense of uncertainty in my relationship to his works since I was not convinced that his fiction was indeed serious literature as opposed to mere light reading. His stories were so well structured and his statements were so clear that there seemed to be little that required critical interpretation. This confusion on my part made me so doubtful that I had no answer for those people who passed final judgement on him. Shortly before last Christmas I received a package from a friend who is likewise an admirer of Zweig. The package contained two books, one book was about the correspondence between Zweig and Heinrich Meyer-Benfey, the other volume was "Stefan Zweig. Exil und Suche nach dem Weltfrieden". The latter discussed from various points of view his exile and his search for a peaceful life in Europe in the middle of the 20th century. Zweig had always striven to be a mediator between the nations and cultures but after 1933 life in his native Austria became all but impossible for him, both as a Jew and as an author. He fled all around the globe and never found the wished freedom and peace. At least he came unstuck in Brazil where he committed suicide with his second wife Lotte in 1942. Fifty years later, in 1992, an international Stefan Zweig congress was arranged in Salzburg (Austria) where he had lived for the 15 years preceding his flight from his native land. The basic theme of this congress was Zweig's attitude toward war, his efforts for a peaceful Europe and his difficult last years in exile up to his suicide in Brazil. Twenty-two experts presented papers at this conference, which lectures (all in German except for three in English) are combined in this volume, in addition to a few articles which were solicited later. In one of these essays I found - for the first time in a book about Zweig - an article which dealt specifically with my problem concerning the literary merit of Zweig's work and my fear that his stories are not of an outstanding quality because his works does not seem to be any special challenge to philologists and literary critics. This very concern formed the central focus of the essay by Volker Michels entitled "Im Unrecht nicht selber ungerecht werden! Stefan Zweig, ein Autor für morgen in der Welt von heute und gestern". Michels believes that Zweig's popularity, like that of Hermann Hesse, is not very high among professional philologists because the works of these authors are, on the surface at least, far too clear and direct and thus obviously less intellectual. According to Michels, such interpreters prefer by far to have that which is simple presented in a highly complicated manner rather than to have the complicated described in simple terms, for then it is the brilliance of their erudition which decodes the underlying messages and toward which the attention of the literary public is directed. Zweig's works do have other intentions since they seek to involve the cooperation of their readers who are to draw their own conclusions from the text themselves, which texts are based on a form of self-criticism rather than an adverse social critique. Michels' words were exactly what I needed at the time. My certainty has grown since then. When I am confronted by a sceptic today, I answer what Michels wrote in his impressive essay: "Stefan Zweig is indeed easy to read but very difficult to live."

Miriam Hoffmann, mh755373@aol.com

Stefan Zweig was a quintessential man of letters whose work and sensibility come to life in this memoir. He was a key participant in European literary culture during the early part of the century, and was a contemporary and colleague of many great writers and thinkers. The book portrays the type of privileged life into which he was born, and poignantly documents the degeneration of his beloved Europe into a state of barbarity.

This book is fascinating as much for what it includes--descriptions of his work, his associations, the events that shaped the time--as for what it does not--any mention of his personal relationships with his wives or with those outside his cultural life. One learns about the man mostly indirectly; this is not a confessional memoir as much as a document of a brilliant man's literary values and intellectual life, and how they were shattered by the destruction of war.

Another Zweig stunner. I don't think there is a single novel or short story of his that I haven't loved. This book is marginally autobiographical but it is so much more. It is a vivid, moving and nostalgic portrayal of Europe between the wars. It is also a plea for intellectual brotherhood and a condemnation of the nationalistic madness that destroyed Europe twice. Zweig's reflections are so astute and so germane to our own times.

World of Yesterday is an unforgettable classic and it should be mandatory reading in high school. In this autobiography, Stefan Zweig not only tells his life story and how he became a successful writer in Vienna, but he also paints the most vivid picture of Europe in the beginning of the century, with heart-breaking detail of the consequences of World War 1 and Hitler's rise to power on his life and the life of all Europeans. What touched me the most is his suggestion of a free-thinking continent with symbolic borders and no passports, and his definition of peace. Reading this book reminded me of the meaninglessness of war. How one's friend and neighbor living across the river can become his "enemy" once war is declared. Its message is still 100% valid today. Just watch the world news...

The existence of this slim volume baffles me. Alright, it is certainly true that Zweig's stories, many of which are absolutely marvelous, are in dire need of a re-release that would hopefully do something to alleviate their obscurity. Very well; perhaps the editors were operating out of this noble idea. Why, then, did they release only two Zweig stories, out of about twenty? And why did they make those two "Invisible Collection" and "Buchmendel"? Granted, both of them are good; the first is even great, certainly one of the man's best. But why only them? And furthermore, why charge the price of a full-length book for such an obviously sparse selection? I don't get it at all.

Bad judgment, certainly. However, it must be noted that neither of these two stories is included in the _other_ incomplete compilation, The Royal Game And Other Stories. Thus, if you liked those (and I don't see how you couldn't have), this book will make a good complement. However, even so, there are _still_ others that are in need of reprint but are included neither here nor there. Argh!

During his lifetime (1881-1942) Stefan Zweig was one of the most celebrated authors in Europe, and anyone who ventures into his writings will understand why. Zweig's insights into and compassion for his fellow human beings is both astonishing and deeply moving. These two tales are among his most beautiful. "The Invisible Collection" is told by an art dealer, who sets out to purchase a print collection from an old man, only to find himself coerced by the man's family into complicity in a heart-breaking game of deception. (The story is more poignant if you know that Zweig himself was an avid collector of autographs and manuscripts.) "Buchmandel" is an equally wrenching tale of a old Jewish man who has a faultless memory for books, who's life falls apart with the advent of World War I. (Imagine a kind of East-European version of Borges' "Funes the Memorious.") These two tales take the art of story-telling to its most refined state, and you'll understand why Zweig's work was considered some of the greatest writing of its time.

According to Stefan Zweig's friend and editor, Richard Friedenthal, his biography of Balzac was intended to be a much more monumental work than this, the culminating achievement of all his biographies. However, the not-altogether-finished manuscript was left behind in Bath when Zweig went to South America in 1940. Zweig continued to work on it briefly, but he quickly lost interest, and eventually he committed suicide in 1941. On at least one occasion the manuscript was narrowly saved from destruction during German air raids before it saw its way to publication in 1946.

Balzac was a prolific writer with a marvellous constitution which he proceeded to abuse mercilessly for most of his adult life. At the age of 33 he dedicated himself to writing a comprehensive collection of novels that would attempt to realistically describe every aspect of mid-19th century French society for posterity. This major work he called "La comedie humaine" (The Human Comedy). This monumental opus was projected to consist of 150 novels comprising some 2000 characters. In fact, Balzac achieved about two-thirds of this remarkably ambitious undertaking, which includes such well-known titles as "Le pere Goriot," "La cousine Bette," and "La recherce de l'absolu."

Balzac wrote thousands of words virtually every day of his adult life. Or, to be more exact, every night: he slept by day until late afternoon at which time he allowed himself to socialize and, more importantly, to absorb every detail of that which he saw and heard; then at midnight, he would sit down at his desk -- for years in unheated garrets in the poorer neighborhoods of Paris -- and write prodigiously until dawn.

During this time Balzac seemed to almost revel in living a life on the edge of financial disaster and emotional collapse; for most of his life he was constantly evading his creditors: "...he adopted a hundred devious ways of holding his creditors at bay, aided by his intimate knowledge of the laws, his inventive skill, and his unscrupulous effrontery."

Yet this remarkably intelligent man always remained optimistic that some day he would finish his great undertaking and eventually would be able to live a life of luxury. To assist him to attain that end, Balzac went through a succession of relationships with women (usually older, usually wealthy, usually married) with whom he had affairs and upon whom he relied for financial assistance and emotional support. He used these women to obtain his objectives. Eventually the tables turned, and it appears as if one of these women ended up using him.

In 1833 a bored baroness in the Ukrainian hinterlands, one Eva de Hanska, for a lark sent a panegyrical letter of admiration to Balzac. They entered into a lengthy correspondence, arranged to meet in Switzerland where they had an affair virtually under the very nose of her unsuspecting husband, who they both expected would die soon. Unfortunately, it took 10 years for the Baron to die, during which time Balzac, while swearing eternal devotion to Eva, was philandering all over Paris. The very wealthy Baroness Hanska was astute enough and cynical enough to keep Balzac waiting another seven years after her husband's death before finally consenting to marry him.

In the meantime, while Balzac waited and daydreamed that his life of financial security would finally be realized, he stopped writing and instead became preoccupied in preparing an elegant house in Paris (Pavillon Beaujon on rue Fortunee) for his future bride to be, which he filled with all kinds of over-priced objets d'art. Baroness Hanska finally consented to leave Russia and marry Balzac in March 1850 only when it was apparent to her that he too would not live long. Although ailing rapidly, Balzac returned in triumph to Paris with his wife, but they hardly took up occupation of Pavillon Beaujon when he became confined to his deathbed; he died on August 18. The Baroness lived another 32 years, shrewdly holding on to his correspondence and unfinished manuscripts, fully aware that these products of Europe's (then) most famous writer, would most certainly some day fetch a fair price.

This is a well-written book and it reads like a novel. (One would hardly guess this was translated, by William and Dorothy Rose, from German into English.) It was difficult for me to sympathize with Balzac when reading this account: he is a snob, he shows callous disregard about incurring indebtedness, he uses women, and he never succeeds in looking reality in the face in his own personal life, even though he has done a remarkable job of doing so in the lives of his fictitious characters. Balzac was a remarkably flawed genius.

The Austrian author Stefan Zweig had a notable career before he emigrated to Brazil where he committed suicide in 1942. The hallmark of his popular biographies was the romanticizing (fictionalizing) of the people he depicted, resulting in one critic's comment that "no such characters ever existed."

This certainly describes at least two of the three characters he depicts in The Mental Healers: Mesmer, Mary Baker Eddy, Freud (1930).

Sigmund Freud had an early opportunity to correct the egregious errors that occurred in this book, including Zweig's misunderstanding of one of Freud's case histories and some oversimplifications that Freud felt misrepresented his nature.

Mary Baker Eddy--who was safely dead and couldn't defend herself--didn't receive due correction until a few years ago - after 65 years of misrepresentation.

The publisher's commentary at the end of the 1998 German edition includes a detailed three-page corrective text on Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Science. This is based on Eddy's own writings and scholarly research done in the past few years. Other printings on the market before this German edition, however, do not carry this text.

Although Eddy's main work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, had been available in German throughout German-speaking Europe for 20 years when Zweig wrote about Eddy, he never referred to her book and apparently never read it. It has now sold over 10 million copies worldwide in 17 languages--a fact that would be hard to explain if Eddy and Christian Science bore the least resemblance to Zweig's grotesque caricature.

Zweig specifically rejected an early biography by Sibyl Wilbur that was published by the Christian Science Publishing Society, because it was favorable to Eddy. He relied instead on a 1909 biography attributed to Georgine Milmine. This was based, in turn, on a 1907-08 series of articles in McClure's Magazine. Both were intended to discredit Eddy and Christian Science while she was still alive.

In the Milmine work, Zweig clearly found a character he could "love to hate," and he enhanced the caricature, imagining her motivations and misquoting her writings in German. Among the misrepresentations were:

1) that Eddy had plagiarized Phineas P. Quimby. This claim has been thoroughly researched in several biographies and legally dismissed.

2) that Eddy came from a poor family and was without education. Numerous historical records shows that she came from an educated, substantial farming family and that she received an extraordinary, albeit informal, classical education from an older brother who was a Dartmouth graduate and active in state politics.

3) that Eddy was mentally and physically infirm in her later years and had a stand-in who appeared in public for her. The findings of a panel of legal masters during the "Next Friends" lawsuit and her founding of The Christian Science Monitor in her eighty-seven year contradiction this.

That Zweig regretted his own "overzealousness" in portraying Eddy is related in Friderike Zweig's biography of her husband. His presentation of Eddy has, nonetheless, permeated Europe for over 70 years in its many translations. It continues to cited as a legitimate source, and is the basis for a widespread misunderstanding.

Readers are advised to look elsewhere for the facts.

Science and Health can be read on-line at spirituality.com. A recent definitive biography is by Dr. Gillian Gill, a professor from Yale University who is not a Christian Scientist, is available from amazon.com. This is a scholarly work of 713 pages. Zweig's is a ludicrous psychobiography of 150 pages, based solely on secondary sources.

Lucie Barclay