La Pitié dangereuse

Name: La Pitié dangereuse
SKU: 28522
Author: Stefan Zweig

Paris, Grasset (Imp. Floch à Mayenne), 1939.

1 vol. (135 x 190 mm) of 303 p., [1] and 1 f. Thick-grained aubergine morocco, smooth spine decorated with six broad blind fillets, doublures lined with old-rose morocco, double endleaves of violet and pale pink moiré silk, original wrappers and spine preserved, modern chemise and slipcase (binding signed G. H. Lillaz).

First edition of the French translation by Alzir Hella.

One of 7 copies on Japanese paper, the first of the deluxe issue (no. 2).

Stefan Zweig's only completed novel.

This miniature portrait of the Habsburg world and its collapse at the outbreak of the Great War is Zweig’s only novel, which he completed while in exile in London. It offers a psychological analysis of the inextricable mixture of idealized feeling and the perversions of desire, and stands as one of his most poignant texts.

Zweig describes a love that turns into hatred, exposing the ambivalence of feeling and wounded psyches that find their consolation in venom. Austro-Hungarian society, a stunned spectator, symbolizes a decadent, complacent civilization, incapable of resisting the intoxication of one last waltz — however tragic and irresponsible — and the spectacle of a First World War.

A very fine copy, bound at the time by the Swiss binder Lillaz.

#28522

Back