num_pages: 220
description: Arthur Schnitzler is best known for his plays, such as La Ronde and The Game of Love, but his short fiction, in which the pulse of early twentieth-century Vienna can be felt as in no other writer, is no less masterly. Characteristic of this observer of the late Habsburg world of balls, adultery and duels is an ironic, bitter-sweet tone reminiscent of another doctor-turned-writer, Anton Chekhov. Schnitzler’s intuitive understanding of the human psyche was much admired by his contemporary Sigmund Freud, and the primary focus of his stories is on the volatile, turbulent inner lives of his characters as revealed in dreams, unconscious sexual impulses, and psychopathic states. This volume containing thirteen stories provides the balanced selection of Schnitzler’s short fiction that has long been needed. It ranges from short comic tales to dense novellas such as Lieutenant Gustl, Fräulein Else, and the superbly atmospheric late, dramatic tale of love and sudden death The Duellist’s Second. Some narratives – as told, for instance, by a deluded bank clerk, or the jealous admirer of another man’s wife – are distinctly ambivalent in implication; others feature characters in threshold situations which force them to reappraise their entire lives.These stories, a number of them translated into English for the first time, brilliantly display the social and psychological awareness of their author, whom today’s reader is likely to find distinctly modern.Contents: His Royal Highness is in the House; Flowers; The Wise Man's Wife; Dead Men Tell No Tales; Lieutenant Gustl; Andreas Thameyer's Farewell Letter; Success; The Green Cravat; An Eccentric; The Grecian Dancer; The Prophecy; Fräulein Else; The Duellist's Second.
language: English
title: Selected Short Fiction
publisher: Angel Books