Alma Books are amongst my favourite “purveyors of literary classics”. Their “Alma Classics” imprint publishes paperbacks which are affordable and yet have an attractive layout and design. More importantly, the catalogue ventures beyond well-trodden paths to include lesser-known works (including several vintage supernatural titles) as well as great European and “world fiction”, often presented in new translations.

One recent publication, for instance, is this volume of four short stories by Stefan Zweig (1881-1942), an Austrian writer whose works are enjoying a comeback in the English-speaking world after decades of relative neglect. Zweig studied philosophy and was initially mainly known for his non-fiction. It was in the 1920s and 1930s that his career as a narrative writer really took off. At the height of his fame, he was respected as a major literary and cultural figure. Suffice it to say that composer Richard Strauss (whom he previously didn’t personally know) asked him to write the libretto for his opera "Die schweigsame Frau" and insisted that Zweig be credited at the premiere, despite Nazi pressure to remove any reference to the librettist (in view of his Jewish descent). This was in 1935, when Zweig had already left Austria for the UK to escape the rise of the Nazis. He would eventually kill himself in Brazil, where he spent his last years of in self-imposed exile.

These were turbulent years where the memories of a world war were still fresh and dark omens of a new conflagration were in the air. This is reflected in the four stories in this collection. Indeed, three of them specifically address political issues. The opening piece - The Invisible Collection - is subtitled "An Anecdote from the years of inflation in Germany"; Incident in Lake Geneva speaks of a war refugee washed ashore near a Swiss town; A Game of Chess, Zweig's last and, possibly, most famous work, describes the harrowing interrogation tactics of the Gestapo. The only exception is Twenty Four Hours in a Woman’s Life, a story about a woman’s one-night stand with a compulsive gambler. At first glance, Zweig seems more concerned with the psychology of his characters rather than grand political and philosophical themes – but these are always teeming close to the surface.

What is surprising is that these, by all accounts, tragic subjects, are presented in prose of an “old-world” elegance, masterfully conveyed in Peter James Bowman’s translation. Even the settings have a quasi-anachronistic, Mitteleuropean feel to them – a world of art collectors, expensive hotels and transatlantic ocean liners. Not surprisingly, Zweig had his fair share of detractors, who dismissed his works as frivolous and superficial. I beg to differ. As in the nostalgic, late works of Richard Strauss, the deceptively “saccharine” style masks a sense of protest in the face of a world which was changing beyond recognition. These stories are as much an elegy to lost innocence as Strauss’s "Metamorphosis" or "Four Last Songs". ( )

Alma Books are amongst my favourite “purveyors of literary classics”. Their “Alma Classics” imprint publishes paperbacks which are affordable and yet have an attractive layout and design. More importantly, the catalogue ventures beyond well-trodden paths to include lesser-known works (including several vintage supernatural titles) as well as great European and “world fiction”, often presented in new translations.

One recent publication, for instance, is this volume of four short stories by Stefan Zweig (1881-1942), an Austrian writer whose works are enjoying a comeback in the English-speaking world after decades of relative neglect. Zweig studied philosophy and was initially mainly known for his non-fiction. It was in the 1920s and 1930s that his career as a narrative writer really took off. At the height of his fame, he was respected as a major literary and cultural figure. Suffice it to say that composer Richard Strauss (whom he previously didn’t personally know) asked him to write the libretto for his opera "Die schweigsame Frau" and insisted that Zweig be credited at the premiere, despite Nazi pressure to remove any reference to the librettist (in view of his Jewish descent). This was in 1935, when Zweig had already left Austria for the UK to escape the rise of the Nazis. He would eventually kill himself in Brazil, where he spent his last years of in self-imposed exile.

These were turbulent years where the memories of a world war were still fresh and dark omens of a new conflagration were in the air. This is reflected in the four stories in this collection. Indeed, three of them specifically address political issues. The opening piece - The Invisible Collection - is subtitled "An Anecdote from the years of inflation in Germany"; Incident in Lake Geneva speaks of a war refugee washed ashore near a Swiss town; A Game of Chess, Zweig's last and, possibly, most famous work, describes the harrowing interrogation tactics of the Gestapo. The only exception is Twenty Four Hours in a Woman’s Life, a story about a woman’s one-night stand with a compulsive gambler. At first glance, Zweig seems more concerned with the psychology of his characters rather than grand political and philosophical themes – but these are always teeming close to the surface.

What is surprising is that these, by all accounts, tragic subjects, are presented in prose of an “old-world” elegance, masterfully conveyed in Peter James Bowman’s translation. Even the settings have a quasi-anachronistic, Mitteleuropean feel to them – a world of art collectors, expensive hotels and transatlantic ocean liners. Not surprisingly, Zweig had his fair share of detractors, who dismissed his works as frivolous and superficial. I beg to differ. As in the nostalgic, late works of Richard Strauss, the deceptively “saccharine” style masks a sense of protest in the face of a world which was changing beyond recognition. These stories are as much an elegy to lost innocence as Strauss’s "Metamorphosis" or "Four Last Songs". ( )