Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman

Description

A fateful encounter in a Montecarlo casino sees an English widow mesmerised by a young Polish artistocrat. A frenzied twenty-four hours ensue, as both struggle in the grip of irresistible obsessions that drive them to defy the conventions of society and risk everything they possess. This is one of the best-loved novellas by Stefan Zweig, a renowned master of the form - its frenetic pace, sparkling prose and acute psychological insight have made this unforgettable story a classic.

Stefan Zweig was born in 1881 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. Between the wars, Zweig was an international bestseller with a string of hugely popular novellas including Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman, Amok and Fear. In 1934, with the rise of Nazism, he left Austria, and lived in London, Bath and New York-a period during which he produced his most celebrated works: his only novel, Beware of Pity, and his memoir, The World of Yesterday. He eventually settled 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.

One hardly knows where to begin in praising this work. Perhaps it would be best to concentrate on the almost supernatural ability Zweig had to get into the heart and mind of a woman -- Nicholas Lezard Guardian Zweig belongs with those masters of the novella-Maupassant, Turgenev, Chekhov. Paul Bailey The Updike of his day... Zweig is a lucid writer, and Bell renders his prose flawlessly New York Observer The rediscovery of this extraordinary writer could well be on a par with last year's refinding of the long-lost Stoner, by John Williams -- Simon Winchester Telegraph