Gorky said in his letter to Zweig: "I was deeply moved by this short story with its amazing sincere tone, its superhuman tenderness to women, the originality of the theme, and the strange expressiveness that only a real artist can have. Reading this novel, I smiled with joy - you wrote it well. I was so excited because of my sympathy for your heroine and her sad heart music that I didnt feel it at all At the end of shame, he began to cry. "

A letter from a strange woman is really an amazing masterpiece.

——Gorky, a famous Soviet writer and author of childhood

Zweigs literary honor reaches to the last corner of the earth... Perhaps no writer has been so famous as Zweig since Erasmus.

——Thomas Mann, German realist writer and Nobel Prize winner for Literature

Zweigs novels do not need many characters, broad historical background, colorful custom pictures and complex plot to receive fascinating effects; But with violent inner struggle and unpredictable emotional ups and downs, that is, with magnificent changes and profound and sharp contradictions in the inner world. This is the reason why his works can cross the times and national boundaries and be loved by generations of readers.

——Zhang Yushu, Professor of the German Department of Peking University and director of the international Zweig Society

Strange women have the courage of strong fatalism. People cant bear to see it, but they cant help it. This kind of beauty is the reality of art... When you talk with tragedy, you will spontaneously generate some power of life, which is a kind of luxury beauty and happiness.

——Meng Jinghui, a famous Chinese drama director

Zweigs novels, like a scalpel, take all the incredible things for granted; He let the flower of pure love bloom all over the branches, but made it shed blood like tears. In his writing, words can be like a trickle, like a runaway Mustang, with considerate feelings and hidden pain in the heart of words. You cant bear to read them again, but you need to read them all at once——He was praised by Gorky as "the writer who knows women best in the world".

“Love is one persons business, and love is two peoples business. So, I love you, it has nothing to do with you. " At the age of 13, the moment she first met a man, she fell in love at first sight and couldnt extricate herself. In the torrent of years, that love has increased unabated. She committed herself to him three times and waited for his call all her life. She went to pick up the ends of his cigars, stroked the door handles he touched, and even went to dust for their children. He knew nothing about all this, and could not even remember the familiar and strange womans face.

Before she died, she was full of infatuation and wrote a desperate anonymous letter recording this extraordinary love. It can be seen vaguely that she is lying on the desolate deck of fate, and the glittering waves push her to nothingness. She gently tells: I want you to know that my life always belongs to you, but you always know nothing about my life... Honey, who will offer you a bunch of white roses on your day in the future?

This book is a selected collection of novels by the famous Austrian writer Zweig, which contains four famous novelettes such as a letter from a strange woman. His writing is clear, beautiful and delicate. He sees the hot feeling in silence and shows the sad meaning in his writing. "A letter from a strange woman" was rated as "an amazing masterpiece" by Gorky.

Stefans Zweigs Letter from an Unknown Woman and other stories contains a new translation by the award-winning Anthea Bell of one of his most celebrated novellas, Letter from an Unknown Woman , the inspiration for a classic 1948 Hollywood film by Max Ophüls, as well as three new stories, appearing in English for the first time.

A famous author receives a letter on his forty-first birthday. He doesnt know the sender, but still the letter concerns him intimately. Its story is earnest, even piteous: the story of a life lived in service to an unannounced, unnoticed love.

In the other stories in this collection, a young man mistakes the girl he loves for her sister; two erstwhile lovers meet after an age spent apart; and a married woman repays a debt of gratitude. All four tales, newly translated by the award-winning Anthea Bell, are among Zweigs most celebrated and compelling work-expertly paced, laced with empathy and an unwaveringly acute sense of psychological detail.

CONTENTS

Letter from an Unknown Woman (Brief einer Unbekannten)

A Story Told in Twilight (Geschichte in der Dämmerung)

The Debt Paid Late (Die spät bezahlte Schuld)

Forgotten Dreams (Vergessene Träume)

Stefan Zweigs time of oblivion is over for good... its good to have him back
— Salman Rushdie, The New York Times

One hardly knows where to begin in praising Zweigs work.
— Ali Smith, TLS Book of the Year 2008