The Berlin stories: The last of Mr. Norris [and] Goodbye to Berlin. With a pref. by the author

A classic of 20th-century fiction, The Berlin Stories inspired the Broadway musical and Oscar-winning film Cabaret.First published in the 1930s, The Berlin Stories contains two astonishing related novels, The Last of Mr. Norris and Goodbye to Berlin, which are recognized today as classics of modern fiction. Isherwood magnificently captures 1931 Berlin: charming, with its avenues and cafÃs; marvelously grotesque, with its nightlife and dreamers; dangerous, with its vice and intrigue; powerful and seedy, with its mobs and millionaires—this is the period when Hitler was beginning his move to power. The Berlin Stories is inhabited by a wealth of characters: the unforgettable Sally Bowles, whose misadventures in the demimonde were popularized on the American stage and screen by Julie Harris in I Am A Camera and Liza Minnelli in Cabaret; Mr. Norris, the improbable old debauchee mysteriously caught between the Nazis and the Communists; plump Fräulein Schroeder, who thinks an operation to reduce the scale of her BÃ1⁄4ste might relieve her heart palpitations; and the distinguished and doomed Jewish family, the Landauers. First published in 1935 and 1939, the two related novels, The Last of Mr. Norris and Goodbye to Berlin , which make up The Berlin Stories are recognized today as classics of modern fiction. A charming city of avenues and cafs, a grotesque city of night-people and fantasts, a dangerous city of vice and intrigue, a powerful city of millionaires and mobs - all this was Berlin in 1931, the period when Hitler was beginning his move to power. Here are Mr. Norris, the improbable old debauchee mysteriously caught in the struggle between Nazis and Communists; plump Frulein Schroeder, who thinks an operation to reduce the scale of her Bste might relieve her heart palpitations; the Landauers, a distinguished and doomed Jewish family; Sally Bowles, whose misadventures in the demimonde were popularized on the American stage and screen by Julie Harris in "I Am a Camera" and by Liza Minelli in "Cabaret." These two novellas are set in Berlin in 1931, just as Adolf Hitler was moving into power. Berlin is charming, with its avenues and cafés; marvelously grotesque, with its nightlife and dreamers; dangerous, with its vice and intrigue; powerful and seedy, with its mobs and millionaires. The stories are inhabited by characters such as the unforgettable Sally Bowles, whose misadventures in the demimonde were popularized on the American stage and screen by Julie Harris in I Am A Camera and Liza Minnelli in Cabaret; Mr. Norris, the improbable old debauchee mysteriously caught between the Nazis and the Communists; plump Fräulein Schroeder, who thinks an operation to reduce the scale of her Büste might relieve her heart palpitations; and the distinguished and doomed Jewish family, the Landauers The Last Of Mr. Norris.--goodbye To Berlin. Christopher Isherwood ; With A Pref. By The Author.