Stefan Zweig wrote historical studies of famous literary figures, such as Honore de Balzac, Charles Dickens, and Fyodor Dostoevsky in Drei Meister, and decisive historical events in Decisive Moments in History.
23 Facts About Stefan Zweig
2.
Stefan Zweig wrote biographies of Joseph Fouche, Mary Stuart and Marie Antoinette, among others.
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In 1934, as a result of the Nazi Party's rise in Germany, Stefan Zweig emigrated to England and then, in 1940, moved briefly to New York and then to Brazil, where he settled.
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Stefan Zweig's work has been the basis for several film adaptations.
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Stefan Zweig's memoir, Die Welt von Gestern, is noted for its description of life during the waning years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire under Franz Joseph I and has been called the most famous book on the Habsburg Empire.
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Stefan Zweig was born in Vienna, the son of Ida Brettauer, a daughter of a Jewish banking family, and Moritz Stefan Zweig, a wealthy Jewish textile manufacturer.
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Stefan Zweig was related to the Czech writer Egon Hostovsky, who described him as "a very distant relative"; some sources describe them as cousins.
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Stefan Zweig studied philosophy at the University of Vienna and in 1904 earned a doctoral degree with a thesis on "The Philosophy of Hippolyte Taine".
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Stefan Zweig had a warm relationship with Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, whom he met when Herzl was still literary editor of the Neue Freie Presse, then Vienna's main newspaper; Herzl accepted for publication some of Stefan Zweig's early essays.
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Stefan Zweig served in the Archives of the Ministry of War and adopted a pacifist stance like his friend Romain Rolland, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature 1915.
11.
In 1934, following Hitler's rise to power in Germany, Stefan Zweig left Austria for England, living first in London, then from 1939 in Bath.
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Stefan Zweig, feeling increasingly depressed about the situation in Europe and the future for humanity, wrote in a letter to author Jules Romains, "My inner crisis consists in that I am not able to identify myself with the me of passport, the self of exile".
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Stefan Zweig had been despairing at the future of Europe and its culture.
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Stefan Zweig was a prominent writer in the 1920s and 1930s, befriending Arthur Schnitzler and Sigmund Freud.
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Stefan Zweig was extremely popular in the United States, South America and Europe, and remains so in continental Europe; however, he was largely ignored by the British public.
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Since that time there has been a marked resurgence and a number of Stefan Zweig's books are back in print.
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Stefan Zweig is best known for his novellas, novels and biographies.
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Stefan Zweig enjoyed a close association with Richard Strauss and provided the libretto for Die schweigsame Frau.
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Stefan Zweig later collaborated with Joseph Gregor to provide Strauss with the libretto for one other opera, Daphne, in 1937.
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At least one other work by Zweig received a musical setting: the pianist and composer Henry Jolles, who like Zweig had fled to Brazil to escape the Nazis, composed a song, "Ultimo poema de Stefan Zweig", based on "Letztes Gedicht", which Zweig wrote on the occasion of his 60th birthday in November 1941.
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Stefan Zweig corresponded at length with Hungarian musicologist Gisela Selden-Goth, often discussing their mutual interest in collecting original music scores.
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The British Library's Stefan Zweig Collection was donated to the library by his heirs in May 1986.
23.
Stefan Zweig has been credited with being one of the novelists who contributed to the emergence of what would later be called the Habsburg Myth.