The Lord Chandos Letter: And Other Writings (New York Review Books Classics)

Hugo von Hoffmannsthal made his mark as a poet, as a playwright, and as the librettist for Richard Strauss’s greatest operas, but he was no less accomplished as a writer of short, strangely evocative prose works. The atmospheric stories and sketches collected here—fin-de-siècle fairy tales from the Vienna of Klimt and Freud, a number of them never before translated into English—propel the reader into a shadowy world of uncanny fates and secret desires. An aristocrat from Paris in the plague years shares a single night of passion with an unknown woman; a cavalry sergeant meets his double on the battlefield; an orphaned man withdraws from the world with his four servants, each of whom has a mysterious power over his destiny. The most influential of all of Hofmannsthal’s writings is the title story, a fictional letter to the English philosopher Francis Bacon in which Lord Chandos explains why he is no longer able to write. The “Letter” not only symbolized Hofmannsthal’s own turn away from poetry, it captured the psychological crisis of faith and language which was to define the twentieth century. Hugo von Hoffmannsthal made his mark as a poet, as a playwright, and as the librettist for Richard Strauss’s greatest operas, but he was no less accomplished as a writer of short, strangely evocative prose works. The atmospheric stories and sketches collected here—fin-de-siècle fairy tales from the Vienna of Klimt and Freud, a number of them never before translated into English—propel the reader into a shadowy world of uncanny fates and secret desires. An aristocrat from Paris in the plague years shares a single night of passion with an unknown woman; a cavalry sergeant meets his double on the battlefield; an orphaned man withdraws from the world with his four servants, each of whom has a mysterious power over his destiny.The most influential of all of Hofmannsthal’s writings is the title story, a fictional letter to the English philosopher Francis Bacon in which Lord Chandos explains why he is no longer able to write. The “Letter” not only symbolized Hofmannsthal’s own turn away from poetry, it captured the psychological crisis of faith and language which was to define the twentieth century. Literary Collections,Essays,Fiction,Classics,Literary Criticism,European,German Hugo von Hoffmannsthal made his mark as a poet, as a playwright, and as the librettist for Richard Strauss's greatest operas, but he was no less accomplished as a writer of short, strangely evocative prose works. The atmospheric stories and sketches collected here'fin-de-siecle fairy tales from the Vienna of Klimt and Freud, a number of them never before translated into English'propel the reader into a shadowy world of uncanny fates and secret desires. An aristocrat from Paris in the plague years shares a single night of passion with an unknown woman; a cavalry sergeant meets his double on the battlefield; an orphaned man withdraws from the world with his four servants, each of whom has a mysterious power over his destiny. The most influential of all of Hofmannsthal's writings is the title story, a fictional letter to the English philosopher Francis Bacon in which Lord Chandos explains why he is no longer able to write. The "Letter" not only symbolized Hofmannsthal's own turn away from poetry, it captured the psychological crisis of faith and language which was to define the twentieth century The farce or is it the tragedy? of New York leftist intellectuals done in by free love is gleefully taken up in [this novel]. Among the union organizers, academics, activists and slumming society folk who make up the cast are transplanted New Englander Miles ("his ... conscience ticking neatly on his desk, beside the clock"); philanderer and mediocre novelist Jeffrey Blake, who gets it on with Comrade Fisher, a militant Trotskyite; and the droning Marxist professor Bruno Leonard. Several of these characters are, of course, planning to start a magazine. [The author of this novel], moved in the same circles as Lionel Trilling, Clifton Fadiman and other famed liberal intellectuals, who seem to have provided her with rich material.-Publishers Weekly. The political tendency of the Thirties defined the style of the class - from that radicalism came the moral urgency, the sense of crisis, the concern with personal salvation. [The] novel look[s] at this new class in the interests of realism ... with a happy acerbity of wit super-added.-Back cover Tess Slesinger's 1934 novel, The Unpossessed details the ins and outs and ups and downs of left-wing New York intellectual life and features a cast of litterateurs, layabouts, lotharios, academic activists, and fur-clad patrons of protest and the arts. This cutting comedy about hard times, bad jobs, lousy marriages, little magazines, high principles, and the morning after bears comparison with the best work of Dawn Powell and Mary McCarthy.** "The Unpossessed" by Tess Slesinger is a novel set in the 1930s that delves into the lives of left-wing intellectuals in New York City. The story revolves around a group of characters who are involved in literary and political circles, grappling with their ideals, relationships, and personal failures. The novel is known for its sharp wit, dark humor, and incisive critique of the pretensions and hypocrisies of its characters. "Details the ins and outs and ups and downs of left-wing New York intellectual life and features a cast of litterateurs, layabouts, lotharios, academic activists, and fur-clad patrons of protest and the arts."--Back cover.