In his Confessions Jean-Jacques Rousseau tells the story of his life, from the formative experience of his humble childhood in Geneva, through the achievement of international fame as novelist and philosopher in Paris, to his wanderings as an exile, persecuted by governments and alienated from the world of modern civilization. In trying to explain who he was and how he came to be the object of...

His short story collection Drei Frauen (Three Women) -- consisting of Grigia, The Portuguese Lady, and Tonka -- was published in 1924. Musil in these tales explores Europe on the verge between civilization and brutality, the modern and pre-modern, nationalism and humanism, and between ‘precision and soul,’ to use Musil's own phrase. In encounters with the three women of the title, each male...

Set in a boarding school in a remote area of the Habsburg Empire at the turn of the last century, The Confusions of Young Torless is an intense study of an adolescent's psychological development as he struggles to come to terms with his conflicting emotions. Through his relationship with two other boys Torless is led into sadistic and sexual encounters with a third pupil which both repel and...

Together with poets and thinkers we walk through the streets of Vienna: with Stefan Zweig we visit the Vienna Concert Hall, Ingeborg Bachmann shows us the Ungargassenland and we meet Friedrich Torberg for a piece of Sachertorte. And Klaus Mann, Robert Seethaler and Arthur Schnitzler also have a lot to say.

For more than a century, this wonderful book by Mark Twain has been equally warmly received by more and more generations of readers, remaining timeless. And this is not surprising, because it has everything that so captivates the reader - the romance of adventure, a plot with unexpected twists, lively humor and even the experiences of the young hero. It turned out to be so real because, as the...

Wie alle Hauptwerke Hermann Hesses hat auch der Demian, den der damals 40jährige Autor mitten im Ersten Weltkrieg schrieb, eine ebenso ungewöhnliche wie spannende Entstehungs- und Wirkungsgeschichte. Daß dieses im Herbst 1917 vollendete Buch erst im Juni 1919, ein halbes Jahr nach Kriegsende, veröffentlicht wurde, lag an der Unbekanntheit des Verfassers. Denn Hesse hatte das Manuskript dem...

»Harry Haller ist in das kulturlose und unmenschliche Inferno unserer prunkenden und lärmenden Gegenwart vorgedrungen und steht mit seinem Begriff von Menschenwert… einsam außerhalb der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft. Seine Sehnsucht kennt eine unerreichbare Wirklichkeit: seine Verzweiflung treibt ihn zuweilen in die erreichbare andere zurück. Lust und Enttäuschung ihres Daseins führen in seinem...

Heinrich Düring, Gemeindebeamter in Fallingbostel, führt ein Doppelleben: Er verachtet das NS-Regime und den Alltag des deutschen Kleinbürgertums, nach außen aber gibt er sich angepasst. Seinen Ausgleich findet er in der Natur, durchstreift unermüdlich die geliebte Heidelandschaft, liest Wieland und Tieck. Im Wald entdeckt er eine Hütte und bezieht sie als Versteck für sich und seine...

A collection of short stories.

The novel The Idiot (1868) was conceived and written by Dostoevsky in Switzerland, the homeland of the great enlightener Rousseau, and therefore it is appropriate to recall his contemporary Voltaire, the author of The Innocent, a book that was one of the first attempts to show the 'ideal person' in this imperfect world. 'The main idea ... - wrote Dostoevsky about his novel, - is to portray a...

Collection of humorous short stories.