Beware of Pity

The only novel written by one of the most popular authors of the twentieth century, translated by the award-winning Anthea BellIn 1913 young second lieutenant Hofmiller discovers the terrible danger of pity. He had no idea the girl was lame when he asked her to dance - so begins a series of visits, motivated by pity, which relieves his guilt but give her a dangerous glimmer of hope. Stefan Zweig's only novel is a devastating depiction of the betrayal of both honour and love, realised against the background of the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

It's just a masterpiece. When I read it I thought, how is it that I don't already know about this?, Zweig's fictional masterpiece, It really touched me. I'm not an easy crier, not at all. But this book was one of the few moments that I found myself sobbing. It was a knife to my heart, The novel I'll really remember reading this year is Stefan Zweig's frighteningly gripping Beware of Pity, first published in 1939 ... and part of the ongoing, valiant reprinting by Pushkin Press of Zweig's collected oeuvre; an intoxicating, morally shaking read about human responsibilities and a real reminder of what fiction can do best, An unremittingly tense parable about emotional blackmail, this is a book which turns every reader into a fanatic

Stefan Zweig was born in 1881 in Vienna, into a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family. He studied in Berlin and Vienna before making his name as a writer. His passionate, dramatic short stories and gripping biographies of major historical and literary figures, including Beware of Pity and The World of Yesterday, made him one of the most popular writers in the world in the 1920s and 30s. During these years Zweig travelled widely, enjoying his literary fame and cultivating friendships with many of the great literary figures of his day. In 1934, with the rise of Nazism, he briefly moved to London, taking British citizenship. After a short period in New York, he settled in Brazil, where he died in 1942. Much of his work is available from Pushkin Press.