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The Royal Game and Other Stories
English, German (translation)
211 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1941
21 people are currently reading
978 people want to read
About the author
Stefan Zweig
2,305 books10.6k followersStefan Zweig was one of the world's most famous writers during the 1920s and 1930s, especially in the U.S., South America, and Europe. He produced novels, plays, biographies, and journalist pieces. Among his most famous works are Beware of Pity, Letter from an Unknown Woman, and Mary, Queen of Scotland and the Isles. He and his second wife committed suicide in 1942.
Zweig studied in Austria, France, and Germany before settling in Salzburg in 1913. In 1934, driven into exile by the Nazis, he emigrated to England and then, in 1940, to Brazil by way of New York. Finding only growing loneliness and disillusionment in their new surroundings, he and his second wife committed suicide.
Zweig's interest in psychology and the teachings of Sigmund Freud led to his most characteristic work, the subtle portrayal of character. Zweig's essays include studies of Honoré de Balzac, Charles Dickens, and Fyodor Dostoevsky (Drei Meister, 1920; Three Masters) and of Friedrich Hölderlin, Heinrich von Kleist, and Friedrich Nietzsche (Der Kampf mit dem Dämon, 1925; Master Builders). He achieved popularity with Sternstunden der Menschheit (1928; The Tide of Fortune), five historical portraits in miniature. He wrote full-scale, intuitive rather than objective, biographies of the French statesman Joseph Fouché (1929), Mary Stuart (1935), and others. His stories include those in Verwirrung der Gefühle (1925; Conflicts). He also wrote a psychological novel, Ungeduld des Herzens (1938; Beware of Pity), and translated works of Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, and Emile Verhaeren.
Most recently, his works provided the inspiration for 2014 film The Grand Budapest Hotel.
Zweig studied in Austria, France, and Germany before settling in Salzburg in 1913. In 1934, driven into exile by the Nazis, he emigrated to England and then, in 1940, to Brazil by way of New York. Finding only growing loneliness and disillusionment in their new surroundings, he and his second wife committed suicide.
Zweig's interest in psychology and the teachings of Sigmund Freud led to his most characteristic work, the subtle portrayal of character. Zweig's essays include studies of Honoré de Balzac, Charles Dickens, and Fyodor Dostoevsky (Drei Meister, 1920; Three Masters) and of Friedrich Hölderlin, Heinrich von Kleist, and Friedrich Nietzsche (Der Kampf mit dem Dämon, 1925; Master Builders). He achieved popularity with Sternstunden der Menschheit (1928; The Tide of Fortune), five historical portraits in miniature. He wrote full-scale, intuitive rather than objective, biographies of the French statesman Joseph Fouché (1929), Mary Stuart (1935), and others. His stories include those in Verwirrung der Gefühle (1925; Conflicts). He also wrote a psychological novel, Ungeduld des Herzens (1938; Beware of Pity), and translated works of Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, and Emile Verhaeren.
Most recently, his works provided the inspiration for 2014 film The Grand Budapest Hotel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 81 reviews
December 7, 2014
The Royal Game and Other Stories
These exceptional novellas are creatively structured psychological battles, set to challenge Zweig's protagonists. Zweig's specific strength is his psychological narrative, often embedding himself in his stories as a narrator as observed in The Royal Game (aka Chess Story) and Amok. Apart from The Royal Game, all the other stories presented here involve women falling in love with male strangers and keeping "dirty little secrets."
The Royal Game
"A man reveals his character in a chess game...I know well enough from my own experience the mysterious attraction of 'the royal game', that game of games devised by man, which rises majestically above every tyranny of chance, which grants its victor's laurels only to a great intellect, or rather, to a particular form of mental ability."
Zweig pairs two unusual subjects he labelled as 'monomaniac' in the great game of chess to examine the psychological effects of "brainwashing" (a technique which fascinated Zweig because of his interest in Psychology) brought about: (1) as a result of nature, and (2) by torturous treatment.
Czentovic, a peasant simpleton "who couldn't put three sentences together correctly", challenges Dr. B., who had once been held in solitary imprisonment in severely sensory-deprived conditions. Dr. B. emerges from the abuse and brutality of the Nazis not a 'whole' man psychologically, whereas his opponent was created intellectually less developed by the hands of nature. The agonizing and strategizing over the chessboard was a nail-biting experience and would wear out even the most conditioned of men.
"All at once a new element had sprung up between the two players: a dangerous tension, a violent hatred. They were..two enemies who had sworn to annihilate each other."
The final pages of the story prove Zweig's brilliance; it comes about so subtly that if you don't read it carefully you just might miss it.
Amok
'Amok' is a cry of warning uttered by Malays when one of their number becomes violently insane and runs amok: "A paroxysm of murderous, mindless monomania which isn't comparable to any alcoholic poisoning.. It seems to be something to do with the climate, with that sultry, oppressive atmosphere that plays on your nerves like a thunderstorm until they snap."
This story centers around a young doctor stationed in a remote district in the Dutch East Indies. He becomes obsessed with a married English woman who seeks his help with a discreet situation, but who contemptuously rejects his crass pursuit, causing his complete lapse of self control and leads him to run maniacally amok.
"I had no influence over myself... I didn't understand myself anymore. I was totally consumed by my obsession with an objective."
The doctor tries to make amends for his behavior by attending to the woman's last wishes, but fails at that, too. Zweig planted himself in this story, serving as narrator of the doctor's dramatic, morbid tale, weaving psychological suspense with all the human flaws of "the wrong and the wronged."
The Burning Secret
Zweig uses the theme of the sexual awakening in a twelve year old as he witnesses a growing relationship between his mother and an idle baron while on vacation. Zweig experiments with broken innocence in a coming-of-age situation, using Oedipal undertones between Edgar and his mother; as well as the boy's youthful admiration and obsession with the adult male character.
They're hiding something. They have a secret they don't want to share with me. I must find out what it is all costs.. I'm going to snatch this terrible secret from them...
Emotions of suspicion, jealousy, humiliation, and disturbing passions are revealed through the points of view of each character in this triangle.
Nothing sharpens the intelligence more than emotional suspicion. Nothing awakens the imagination more in an immature mind than to be following a trail in the dark. Sometimes there is only one single, flimsy door separating children from the real world, as we call it, and a chance puff of wind will blow it open.
Fear
A married woman is blackmailed over her secret love affair, sending her into a spiral of nervousness and anxiety. When thoughts of being found out run in a heated cycle of paranoia then regret, I felt the pounding of fear in my own veins.
"All limbs felt restless and heavy, filled with the leaden weight of fatigue that made them almost hurt but nevertheless prevented her from sleeping. Her whole existence was undermined by gnawing fear, her whole body poisoned, and in her heart she actually longed for this ill health finally to break out and some obvious pain, some really tangible, visible, clinical disease for which people had sympathy and understanding."
Fear was the first Zweig story I'd ever read; a marvel of psychological insight into a desperate woman's mind that instantly made me put his name on the read-more-of-this-author-list.
Letter from an Unknown Woman
"I will reveal my whole life to you, a life which truly began only on the day I first knew you".
An unidentified woman sends a letter to her former lover, a famous writer so self-absorbed that he doesn't even recollect the woman with whom he once had a passionate affair. She starts her lengthy letter with the telling of a death, and proceeds to pour out her memories of their encounters with love and melancholy. As he reads it, he shows only the dimmest and most muddled memory of her. Zweig's story of passion, pain and self-sacrifice against cold aloofness and emotional detachment is deliciously melodramatic and sorrowful. This is quite possibly my favorite piece in the collection.
Further Stefan Zweig works, read and highly recommended:
Beware of Pity
The Post office Girl
Confusion
The World of Yesterday
Twenty Four Hours in the Life of a Woman
Marie Stuart
These exceptional novellas are creatively structured psychological battles, set to challenge Zweig's protagonists. Zweig's specific strength is his psychological narrative, often embedding himself in his stories as a narrator as observed in The Royal Game (aka Chess Story) and Amok. Apart from The Royal Game, all the other stories presented here involve women falling in love with male strangers and keeping "dirty little secrets."
The Royal Game
"A man reveals his character in a chess game...I know well enough from my own experience the mysterious attraction of 'the royal game', that game of games devised by man, which rises majestically above every tyranny of chance, which grants its victor's laurels only to a great intellect, or rather, to a particular form of mental ability."
Zweig pairs two unusual subjects he labelled as 'monomaniac' in the great game of chess to examine the psychological effects of "brainwashing" (a technique which fascinated Zweig because of his interest in Psychology) brought about: (1) as a result of nature, and (2) by torturous treatment.
Czentovic, a peasant simpleton "who couldn't put three sentences together correctly", challenges Dr. B., who had once been held in solitary imprisonment in severely sensory-deprived conditions. Dr. B. emerges from the abuse and brutality of the Nazis not a 'whole' man psychologically, whereas his opponent was created intellectually less developed by the hands of nature. The agonizing and strategizing over the chessboard was a nail-biting experience and would wear out even the most conditioned of men.
"All at once a new element had sprung up between the two players: a dangerous tension, a violent hatred. They were..two enemies who had sworn to annihilate each other."
The final pages of the story prove Zweig's brilliance; it comes about so subtly that if you don't read it carefully you just might miss it.
Amok
'Amok' is a cry of warning uttered by Malays when one of their number becomes violently insane and runs amok: "A paroxysm of murderous, mindless monomania which isn't comparable to any alcoholic poisoning.. It seems to be something to do with the climate, with that sultry, oppressive atmosphere that plays on your nerves like a thunderstorm until they snap."
This story centers around a young doctor stationed in a remote district in the Dutch East Indies. He becomes obsessed with a married English woman who seeks his help with a discreet situation, but who contemptuously rejects his crass pursuit, causing his complete lapse of self control and leads him to run maniacally amok.
"I had no influence over myself... I didn't understand myself anymore. I was totally consumed by my obsession with an objective."
The doctor tries to make amends for his behavior by attending to the woman's last wishes, but fails at that, too. Zweig planted himself in this story, serving as narrator of the doctor's dramatic, morbid tale, weaving psychological suspense with all the human flaws of "the wrong and the wronged."
The Burning Secret
Zweig uses the theme of the sexual awakening in a twelve year old as he witnesses a growing relationship between his mother and an idle baron while on vacation. Zweig experiments with broken innocence in a coming-of-age situation, using Oedipal undertones between Edgar and his mother; as well as the boy's youthful admiration and obsession with the adult male character.
They're hiding something. They have a secret they don't want to share with me. I must find out what it is all costs.. I'm going to snatch this terrible secret from them...
Emotions of suspicion, jealousy, humiliation, and disturbing passions are revealed through the points of view of each character in this triangle.
Nothing sharpens the intelligence more than emotional suspicion. Nothing awakens the imagination more in an immature mind than to be following a trail in the dark. Sometimes there is only one single, flimsy door separating children from the real world, as we call it, and a chance puff of wind will blow it open.
Fear
A married woman is blackmailed over her secret love affair, sending her into a spiral of nervousness and anxiety. When thoughts of being found out run in a heated cycle of paranoia then regret, I felt the pounding of fear in my own veins.
"All limbs felt restless and heavy, filled with the leaden weight of fatigue that made them almost hurt but nevertheless prevented her from sleeping. Her whole existence was undermined by gnawing fear, her whole body poisoned, and in her heart she actually longed for this ill health finally to break out and some obvious pain, some really tangible, visible, clinical disease for which people had sympathy and understanding."
Fear was the first Zweig story I'd ever read; a marvel of psychological insight into a desperate woman's mind that instantly made me put his name on the read-more-of-this-author-list.
Letter from an Unknown Woman
"I will reveal my whole life to you, a life which truly began only on the day I first knew you".
An unidentified woman sends a letter to her former lover, a famous writer so self-absorbed that he doesn't even recollect the woman with whom he once had a passionate affair. She starts her lengthy letter with the telling of a death, and proceeds to pour out her memories of their encounters with love and melancholy. As he reads it, he shows only the dimmest and most muddled memory of her. Zweig's story of passion, pain and self-sacrifice against cold aloofness and emotional detachment is deliciously melodramatic and sorrowful. This is quite possibly my favorite piece in the collection.
Further Stefan Zweig works, read and highly recommended:
Beware of Pity
The Post office Girl
Confusion
The World of Yesterday
Twenty Four Hours in the Life of a Woman
Marie Stuart
December 18, 2020
Very impressive short stories. Zweig writes deceptively, the stories seem to start in a quite ordinary way and before I knew it I was drawn into them, compulsively reading to find out what was going on in his character’s heads. Each story has at its heart an extreme emotion, from the monomania of the man who learnt chess by memorising games from a book while a prisoner in “The Royal Game”, to the young woman’s adoring, obsessive love for her writer neighbour in “Letter from an Unknown Woman”. Fear, passion , jealousy, angst, deception all feature in them in various ways. These are short stories but the characters are fleshed out, and there is depth to them. Although the stories are clearly of an older time they read very modern to me. The other stories in this collection ; “Amok” is about an isolated doctor in a colonial setting returning to Europe, “Fear” is the story of an unfaithful rich wife and “The Burning Secret”, a 12yo boy on the edge of the adult world looking in and not understanding adult motivation. An excellent read.
December 8, 2014
I got this book of Zweig's, dismayed to find that it was the ONLY book by this wonderful writer in the Greensboro Public Library. No matter. Here you will find a master at the top of his craft. "The Royal Game" is a collection of five of Zweig's best short stories. The title story was written four months before Zweig and his wife committed suicide together by taking massive doses of veronal. It tells of a man who outwits the Gestapo and manages to find a way to go on living until the methods he used in his earlier survival threaten to drive him mad and shatter his new-found hold on life. "Amok" portrays unrestrained adult passions and the ruin that they cause, while they elevate one character into at last standing up for a promise he makes to a dying woman, ultimately sacrificing himself to see that this promise is fulfilled. "The Burning Secret" gives the reader a glimpse of how mysterious the adult world is to a 12-year old child and how this same child is forced to at last cross over into the complex world of adulthood he so yearns for. "Fear" brilliantly portrays the guilt of a wealthy woman who has an affair, her very first, and then is blackmailed for it by the lover's wife (girlfriend? we never really know whether she's his wife or not) and faces losing husband, children, reputation as she fearfully gives the blackmailer any sum she asks for, while knowing her desperate secret cannot remain hidden forever. Lastly, "Letter From an Unknown Woman" (later filmed by Max Ophuls) will literally wrench a reader's heart as it unfolds its terrible tragic tale.
These five stories are an excellent introduction to Zweig for those who have not yet discovered him. I recently finished his memoirs, "The World of Yesterday", and while that is non-fiction and these stories fiction, both books show why Zweig was one of the most popular writers of the early 20th century. As John Fowles, author of "The French Lieutenant's Woman", notes in his introduction, "Stefan Zweig has suffered, since his death in 1943, a darker eclipse than another other famous writer of this century. Even 'famous writer' understates the prodigious reputation he enjoyed in the last decade or so of his life, when he was arguably the most widely read and translated serious author in the world. Yet I suspect very few English-speaking readers who have grown up since the Second World War know anything of him at all, except the name."
That is a pity too, though I must confess I wasn't aware of him either until I saw the film, "The Grand Budapest Hotel" with Ralph Fiennes, which is somewhat based on Zweig's life. If you have not seen the film or read Zweig, "The Royal Game and Other Stories" is an excellent place to start.
These five stories are an excellent introduction to Zweig for those who have not yet discovered him. I recently finished his memoirs, "The World of Yesterday", and while that is non-fiction and these stories fiction, both books show why Zweig was one of the most popular writers of the early 20th century. As John Fowles, author of "The French Lieutenant's Woman", notes in his introduction, "Stefan Zweig has suffered, since his death in 1943, a darker eclipse than another other famous writer of this century. Even 'famous writer' understates the prodigious reputation he enjoyed in the last decade or so of his life, when he was arguably the most widely read and translated serious author in the world. Yet I suspect very few English-speaking readers who have grown up since the Second World War know anything of him at all, except the name."
That is a pity too, though I must confess I wasn't aware of him either until I saw the film, "The Grand Budapest Hotel" with Ralph Fiennes, which is somewhat based on Zweig's life. If you have not seen the film or read Zweig, "The Royal Game and Other Stories" is an excellent place to start.
September 30, 2013
Overall a very enjoyable experience. Every story a literal telling that was done masterfully. Though I typically enjoy a less literal work, Zweig can make you read on, and for that I am grateful, and also quite glad he has been rediscovered and getting his proper due.
March 22, 2014
Zweig is a masterful storyteller. These are some of his finest examples, beginning with a man with chess-mania.
August 15, 2024
Had he been born a century later and on the other side of the pond, and if by some good grace he wasn’t caught up in making money, as you do when there, via the sweltering dot-com bubble at the time, for example, had attended my suburban high school, then I’m certain that Zweig would’ve written about Nela Bodovich. She’s the perfect Zweig character.
Bodovich. That Eastern European mysticism. A perfectly situated mole above her lip. Pure class. With a glance, you knew right away she was immune to the frivolities of us teenage boys, there would be no hand venturing up the blouse, an implicit knowledge that she was untouchable radiated from her aura. Could’ve also been the fact that during the long Canadian winter she was whisked away to sunny down under to participate in a Grand Slam; the junior qualifiers at the Aussie Open, notably absent from our 11th grade discussions about Tess form the Durberville, or well, all of our curriculum. Her bronzed skin magnified against our February palor when she returned a few weeks later.
What drove her family to emigrate? Was someone caught doing the naked dosey-doe with a member of the nobility? A little too strong opposition to Tito? Or was it the dream of Levi’s Blue Jeans?
Tanned, however returning empty handed and the Anna Kournikova dream dashed, the project of grooming the daughter began, to bequeath her to the North American equivalent of nobility, CASH MONEY. Now, the family wasn’t bumpin the Hot Boys and Big Tymers, c’mon now, they weren’t into iced out candy-coated helicopters with leather covers, their aim was real wealth.
Most of us left high school to overpay for the chance to sit at lecture halls housing five hundred others at University (a helluva business model). Some left to learn the trades at college. Others, well I don’t know what the fuck they did, often those ones resurfaced many years later to lead successful real estate careers, the pinnacle of which meant having their face plastered on the uptown Bus Number 50, next to the bold typeface proclaiming Guaranteed Sold - Anything Less is Second Best! On sunny days the teeth would sparkle at exactly the moment you read it and you kinda cursed yourself for not smoking weed in the parking lot all those years to end up with this small town fame.
But not Nela. This is all Facebook based observational research, it seems to me that the family wasted no time. Before the tennis training physique wore off, all suitors were vetted, before settling on a doctor, specializing in blood transfusions, 20+ years here senior. Made his name treating the poor in Calcutta. No, of course not. His claim to fame was treating none other than Tiger Woods and several other high profile athletes. The only way to the top, and also the way I intend to condition my offspring, by the way. Heck, it’s a nut I’m still trying to crack myself. Do this, and all the world's riches come your way. Mansions, estates, twenty year olds with wide child bearing hips.
On the surface, life is good. I mean VERY good. The butlers and servants don’t feature in the reels, but I”m certain they’re there. On this particular point, I’m particularly bitter about, since these days I’m so balls deep into domestic work that I hardly have time to read. The offspring attend a private school that costs some 50,000 CAD per year. And you can times it by three, over 18 years - you do the math. This kind of wealth sends me cowering with fear. One post featured the daughter when asked which person she’d like to dine with and she named some dead obscure author. Doesn’t mean much here, but we’re talking North America where 999,999 out of 1,000,000 of teens would be naming Mr. Beast or Taylor Swift. Meanwhile while the husband was out doing a promotional tour, Nela had the gumption to make a hashtag with ‘Science’, taking me back to the time when I visited a high street in some Germany uber capitalist town with a bookish girlfriend and she shit her pants when she saw a book entitled ‘Plants’ in the bookstore. What the fuck kind of books do they sell here!
In Zweig’s story Nela would have some sort of mental affliction. Or maybe a tryst at the lakeside manor leading to an intense paranoia. Nothing some #Science couldn’t solve, or 80 mil in the bank account.
His stories dragged on a little, I suppose a little like this one.
Bodovich. That Eastern European mysticism. A perfectly situated mole above her lip. Pure class. With a glance, you knew right away she was immune to the frivolities of us teenage boys, there would be no hand venturing up the blouse, an implicit knowledge that she was untouchable radiated from her aura. Could’ve also been the fact that during the long Canadian winter she was whisked away to sunny down under to participate in a Grand Slam; the junior qualifiers at the Aussie Open, notably absent from our 11th grade discussions about Tess form the Durberville, or well, all of our curriculum. Her bronzed skin magnified against our February palor when she returned a few weeks later.
What drove her family to emigrate? Was someone caught doing the naked dosey-doe with a member of the nobility? A little too strong opposition to Tito? Or was it the dream of Levi’s Blue Jeans?
Tanned, however returning empty handed and the Anna Kournikova dream dashed, the project of grooming the daughter began, to bequeath her to the North American equivalent of nobility, CASH MONEY. Now, the family wasn’t bumpin the Hot Boys and Big Tymers, c’mon now, they weren’t into iced out candy-coated helicopters with leather covers, their aim was real wealth.
Most of us left high school to overpay for the chance to sit at lecture halls housing five hundred others at University (a helluva business model). Some left to learn the trades at college. Others, well I don’t know what the fuck they did, often those ones resurfaced many years later to lead successful real estate careers, the pinnacle of which meant having their face plastered on the uptown Bus Number 50, next to the bold typeface proclaiming Guaranteed Sold - Anything Less is Second Best! On sunny days the teeth would sparkle at exactly the moment you read it and you kinda cursed yourself for not smoking weed in the parking lot all those years to end up with this small town fame.
But not Nela. This is all Facebook based observational research, it seems to me that the family wasted no time. Before the tennis training physique wore off, all suitors were vetted, before settling on a doctor, specializing in blood transfusions, 20+ years here senior. Made his name treating the poor in Calcutta. No, of course not. His claim to fame was treating none other than Tiger Woods and several other high profile athletes. The only way to the top, and also the way I intend to condition my offspring, by the way. Heck, it’s a nut I’m still trying to crack myself. Do this, and all the world's riches come your way. Mansions, estates, twenty year olds with wide child bearing hips.
On the surface, life is good. I mean VERY good. The butlers and servants don’t feature in the reels, but I”m certain they’re there. On this particular point, I’m particularly bitter about, since these days I’m so balls deep into domestic work that I hardly have time to read. The offspring attend a private school that costs some 50,000 CAD per year. And you can times it by three, over 18 years - you do the math. This kind of wealth sends me cowering with fear. One post featured the daughter when asked which person she’d like to dine with and she named some dead obscure author. Doesn’t mean much here, but we’re talking North America where 999,999 out of 1,000,000 of teens would be naming Mr. Beast or Taylor Swift. Meanwhile while the husband was out doing a promotional tour, Nela had the gumption to make a hashtag with ‘Science’, taking me back to the time when I visited a high street in some Germany uber capitalist town with a bookish girlfriend and she shit her pants when she saw a book entitled ‘Plants’ in the bookstore. What the fuck kind of books do they sell here!
In Zweig’s story Nela would have some sort of mental affliction. Or maybe a tryst at the lakeside manor leading to an intense paranoia. Nothing some #Science couldn’t solve, or 80 mil in the bank account.
His stories dragged on a little, I suppose a little like this one.
January 16, 2026
I bought this second hand years ago due to the chess connection. I feared it might a bit heavy, but when I finally picked it up, I was pleasantly surprised how easy this was to read - this is a collection of five menacing physiological short stories.
I knew nothing of Zweig although according to John Fowles’s forward he was once well known. You could see many of the stories being turned into Hitchcock thrillers. It turns out many have been made into films, including the Grand Budapest Hotel.
Most are set in the mid-war period around Central Europe. It’s certainly locked into its time - you might find the stories disturbing, possibly borderline racist and misogynistic.
The Royal Game: A psychological drama involving two different chess players, both with differing mental health / monomania challenges. A clever concept. 4
Amok: Another framed narrative told on a sea journey. A dark psychological tragedy of doomed lust and mania. 4
Burning Secret. Another psycho-drama. A brooding tale of passion, hate, mind games, childhood and ultimately redemption. I’m thinking Adrián Mole gone to the dark side. 3
Fear. More adulterous secrets under middle class gentility. Claustrophobic with the feel of Edgar Allen Poe. 3
Unknown woman: A bleak framed narrative involving obsessive monomania inexorably to a dark conclusion. Sort of reverse Lolita meets King’s Misery. 3
I knew nothing of Zweig although according to John Fowles’s forward he was once well known. You could see many of the stories being turned into Hitchcock thrillers. It turns out many have been made into films, including the Grand Budapest Hotel.
Most are set in the mid-war period around Central Europe. It’s certainly locked into its time - you might find the stories disturbing, possibly borderline racist and misogynistic.
The Royal Game: A psychological drama involving two different chess players, both with differing mental health / monomania challenges. A clever concept. 4
Amok: Another framed narrative told on a sea journey. A dark psychological tragedy of doomed lust and mania. 4
Burning Secret. Another psycho-drama. A brooding tale of passion, hate, mind games, childhood and ultimately redemption. I’m thinking Adrián Mole gone to the dark side. 3
Fear. More adulterous secrets under middle class gentility. Claustrophobic with the feel of Edgar Allen Poe. 3
Unknown woman: A bleak framed narrative involving obsessive monomania inexorably to a dark conclusion. Sort of reverse Lolita meets King’s Misery. 3
August 28, 2023
I really enjoyed this collection of stories by Stefan Zweig. Though varied, these stories are all entertaining, contain a deeper lesson, and share the beautiful writing of this magnificent author. My favorite stories are the namesake, The Royal Game, and Fear. Both of these stories introduce you to some pretty complex characters, who you feel you know quite well even after only a few pages.
I recommend this book to people who enjoyed Zweig's "The World of Yesterday". He is just as good at his fiction as he is in his memoir!
I recommend this book to people who enjoyed Zweig's "The World of Yesterday". He is just as good at his fiction as he is in his memoir!
January 17, 2023
Love the writing but the content... ugh. The depictions of women are best left in the past. Unbearable.
May 22, 2025
opnieuw een boekje van toppertje stefan
August 11, 2021
Fascinating, exquisitely crafted tales of psychological warfare, repression and passion
February 24, 2021
“The Royal Game” and “Letter From An Unknown Woman” were particularly well done. “The Royal Game” is one of the wildest and lead predictable stories I’ve ever read — I can see how it’s meandering opening of narrative dead-ends before we figure out what the story is REALLY about serves as inspiration for the embedded nesting-doll frame narratives in The Grand Budapest Hotel.
October 10, 2021
Psychothriller, qu’est-ce que c’est?
June 16, 2013
This Penguin edition from 1981 was published to commemorate the centenary of Zweig's birth. He was largely forgotten at that time, but of course that's all changed now thanks to the efforts of Pushkin Press. There's an informative and thoughtful introduction by John Fowles, followed by 5 of Zweig's finest novellas - 'The Royal Game' (aka 'Chess'), 'Amok', 'The Burning Secret', 'Fear' and 'Letter From An Unknown Woman'. Zweig was a true master of the novella, and every one of these is compulsive reading. He's particularly acute on the psychology of his characters, which is perhaps why Freud was a fan. Great stuff.
September 3, 2019
Thought-provoking, psychological stories from a time between the great wars
The first story is about chess. It features a kind of idiot savant who becomes the world chess champion. The time is the late 1930s as Hitler is taking over Europe. The champion is on a cruise to Argentina. The man who tells the story is a passenger aboard the ship. A fellow passenger tells the chess champion's public story to him: the champion is an exceedingly boorish man, an ignorant peasant with an extraordinary gift. Soon to be pitted against the champion is an extraordinary amateur, a Dr. B who mastered the game while a prisoner of the Nazis. He learned to play in his head against himself in solitaire confinement.
I relate these details so that the reader might know if this story is the same as “Chess Story,” also by Zweig from another edition of his tales. Coincidentally, I myself wrote a story with the same title, “Chess Story.” The curious may find the story in my collection “Let’s Play Overkill.”
Anyway, Zweig, who was a Viennese friend of Freud's, writes about emotional passion--extraordinary, over the top, intense, all-consuming passion—the sort of passion that cannot be controlled, the sort of passion that comes from our reptilian brains, or as Freud had it, from our Id. Superficially the stories are realistic, almost painfully so (if a bit overwrought), but the realism is in the psychology, not in the events. In particular there is no way that “the celebrated novelist R.” could have failed to recognize the woman who wrote that “Letter from an Unknown Woman” (the fifth story in the collection of five). Could you forget a woman with whom you spent three intimate nights and then another night some years later, a woman you watched dance--fascinated--a “beautiful” woman, apparently even a strikingly beautiful woman, whom many men loved and wanted to marry? Even Casanova would recall the more beautiful or accomplished of his conquests. However the sense that she was just another in a long line is psychologically true, as is the fact that R. was the sort of man who found such affairs easy and of little consequence.
Similarly in the fourth story, the protagonist, Irene, who is a very proper upper-middle class Viennese woman, petrified with “Fear” that her infidelity will come to light, would surely have realized that telling the truth to her wise and kindly husband was better than suicide or giving away her wedding ring, or—and this is Zweig's point—continuing to live every moment in the state of fear. Yet her fear is real—and it is the key to understanding the story to realize that her fear was the equivalent of a normal person's fear of falling from a high cliff onto hard rocks far below. I might add that her husband's rather elaborate way of “punishing” her for her infidelity was a bit cruel, as he finally realizes—so maybe her fear was entirely justified, psychologically speaking.
The central psychology encountered in these pages is that of the child contrasted with that of a normal adult, especially a considerate, even kindly, adult male (viz., the narrators in “The Royal Game” and “Amok”; the father in “The Burning Secret,” the husband in “Fear”--even the caddish “R.”of “Letter from an Unknown Woman”). Irene especially is child-like in her understanding of herself and her husband. Edgar in “The Burning Secret,” although 12-years-old is actually more like a child of seven or eight in his ignorance about sex and his (initial!) sense of being a powerless child. And the doctor who runs “Amok” is childish in the sense that he cannot abide the insult and loss of face that he believes he has experienced from the woman of station who comes to him for an abortion. He feels humiliated for no good reason, like a child embarrassed in front of his friends. Yet again in a deeper sense Zweig shows us that her rejection of him amounted to a particularly deep humiliation because it implied that he was inferior not only in social class but as a man. Nothing cuts deeper than the woman who says “no” because she believes you are beneath her.
For the most part Zweig walks a fine line between the melodramatic and the merely passionate. However in “Letter from an Unknown Woman” he goes go a bit overboard. Additionally I was not entirely in agreement with some of his psychological “insights.” While we have the examples of Paul Morphy, Bobby Fischer and the alcoholic Alekhine (among others) to demonstrate that great chess players may be unstable in other aspects of life, I don't think the game itself can drive one to madness as might have happened to Dr. B. Yet, again, there is the deeper insight provided by Zweig: Dr. B.'s chessic hysteria came not so much from the game itself as from the experience of being emotionally deprived and terrified by the Nazis. And while I think that a boy of 12 lean years may be confused about the shifting loyalties and subterfuges of adults, I don't think he would be ignorant about what men and women do when alone. Perhaps Zweig should have made Edgar a bit younger. Then again, perhaps in the still Victorian society of early 20th century Vienna, a 12-year-old might conceivably remain ignorant of sexuality. But I doubt it.
I guess what I am illustrating here is how psychologically interesting and thought-provoking Zweig's stories really are.
There is a nice introduction in this volume written in 1999 by Professor Jeffrey B. Berlin, who is an expert on German-language literature. The excellent translation is by Jill Sutcliffe. Beware of some typos.
--Dennis Littrell, author of the sensational mystery novel, “Teddy and Teri”
The first story is about chess. It features a kind of idiot savant who becomes the world chess champion. The time is the late 1930s as Hitler is taking over Europe. The champion is on a cruise to Argentina. The man who tells the story is a passenger aboard the ship. A fellow passenger tells the chess champion's public story to him: the champion is an exceedingly boorish man, an ignorant peasant with an extraordinary gift. Soon to be pitted against the champion is an extraordinary amateur, a Dr. B who mastered the game while a prisoner of the Nazis. He learned to play in his head against himself in solitaire confinement.
I relate these details so that the reader might know if this story is the same as “Chess Story,” also by Zweig from another edition of his tales. Coincidentally, I myself wrote a story with the same title, “Chess Story.” The curious may find the story in my collection “Let’s Play Overkill.”
Anyway, Zweig, who was a Viennese friend of Freud's, writes about emotional passion--extraordinary, over the top, intense, all-consuming passion—the sort of passion that cannot be controlled, the sort of passion that comes from our reptilian brains, or as Freud had it, from our Id. Superficially the stories are realistic, almost painfully so (if a bit overwrought), but the realism is in the psychology, not in the events. In particular there is no way that “the celebrated novelist R.” could have failed to recognize the woman who wrote that “Letter from an Unknown Woman” (the fifth story in the collection of five). Could you forget a woman with whom you spent three intimate nights and then another night some years later, a woman you watched dance--fascinated--a “beautiful” woman, apparently even a strikingly beautiful woman, whom many men loved and wanted to marry? Even Casanova would recall the more beautiful or accomplished of his conquests. However the sense that she was just another in a long line is psychologically true, as is the fact that R. was the sort of man who found such affairs easy and of little consequence.
Similarly in the fourth story, the protagonist, Irene, who is a very proper upper-middle class Viennese woman, petrified with “Fear” that her infidelity will come to light, would surely have realized that telling the truth to her wise and kindly husband was better than suicide or giving away her wedding ring, or—and this is Zweig's point—continuing to live every moment in the state of fear. Yet her fear is real—and it is the key to understanding the story to realize that her fear was the equivalent of a normal person's fear of falling from a high cliff onto hard rocks far below. I might add that her husband's rather elaborate way of “punishing” her for her infidelity was a bit cruel, as he finally realizes—so maybe her fear was entirely justified, psychologically speaking.
The central psychology encountered in these pages is that of the child contrasted with that of a normal adult, especially a considerate, even kindly, adult male (viz., the narrators in “The Royal Game” and “Amok”; the father in “The Burning Secret,” the husband in “Fear”--even the caddish “R.”of “Letter from an Unknown Woman”). Irene especially is child-like in her understanding of herself and her husband. Edgar in “The Burning Secret,” although 12-years-old is actually more like a child of seven or eight in his ignorance about sex and his (initial!) sense of being a powerless child. And the doctor who runs “Amok” is childish in the sense that he cannot abide the insult and loss of face that he believes he has experienced from the woman of station who comes to him for an abortion. He feels humiliated for no good reason, like a child embarrassed in front of his friends. Yet again in a deeper sense Zweig shows us that her rejection of him amounted to a particularly deep humiliation because it implied that he was inferior not only in social class but as a man. Nothing cuts deeper than the woman who says “no” because she believes you are beneath her.
For the most part Zweig walks a fine line between the melodramatic and the merely passionate. However in “Letter from an Unknown Woman” he goes go a bit overboard. Additionally I was not entirely in agreement with some of his psychological “insights.” While we have the examples of Paul Morphy, Bobby Fischer and the alcoholic Alekhine (among others) to demonstrate that great chess players may be unstable in other aspects of life, I don't think the game itself can drive one to madness as might have happened to Dr. B. Yet, again, there is the deeper insight provided by Zweig: Dr. B.'s chessic hysteria came not so much from the game itself as from the experience of being emotionally deprived and terrified by the Nazis. And while I think that a boy of 12 lean years may be confused about the shifting loyalties and subterfuges of adults, I don't think he would be ignorant about what men and women do when alone. Perhaps Zweig should have made Edgar a bit younger. Then again, perhaps in the still Victorian society of early 20th century Vienna, a 12-year-old might conceivably remain ignorant of sexuality. But I doubt it.
I guess what I am illustrating here is how psychologically interesting and thought-provoking Zweig's stories really are.
There is a nice introduction in this volume written in 1999 by Professor Jeffrey B. Berlin, who is an expert on German-language literature. The excellent translation is by Jill Sutcliffe. Beware of some typos.
--Dennis Littrell, author of the sensational mystery novel, “Teddy and Teri”
February 17, 2017
Zweig is a master storyteller! Each of these five long short stories (probably too long to be short stories and too short to be novellas) is a psychological thriller, describing obsession so clearly that you, the reader, are swept up its suspense. Zweig, an Austrian Jew, wrote "The Royal Game", during WWII. It has been said to depict Nazi psychological warfare. It along with "The Burning Secret" were my favorites in this volume. But each one is exceptional and wonderfully written. Highly recommended!
September 26, 2011
Fantastic. Stefan Zweig - what a great find. The book I read had three longish short stories - novellas if you like - The Royal Game, Amok and Letter from an Unknown Woman. If you enjoy Somerset Maugham, I'd recommend Stefan Zweig highly. Three and a half stars! I can't wait to read more by this guy.
March 8, 2014
Amazing! read it!!!! the only problem is that is too short!!!
November 19, 2017
I originally found out about this author several years ago when my daughter asked for one of his books for Christmas. However, I did not read anything by him until recently. I started reading this book of novellas and read the first two in two nights and then made the mistake of reading the last three in one evening and then couldn't get to sleep until way after midnight. Zweig's story-telling ability and vivid descriptions kept me riveted. Three of the 5 could be called psychological thrillers along the vein of Hitchcock thrillers. And, it looks like 3 were made into movies. Fear was made starring Ingrid Bergman by husband director Rossellini. Letter from an Unknown Woman by Max Ophuls starred Joan Fontaine, a staple of Hitchcock movies because of her acting ability in thrillers. The Royal Game movie from what I can tell from the plot did not follow the novella exactly but I am still interested in watching it. Zweig was a German writer who has been ignored for many years. Although he was patriotic and was safe in Germany in WWI, sentiment against Jews led him to leave Germany with his wife in 1934 for England. Eventually, they came to the US but he never really liked it here and suffered from depression. In 1940 they moved to a German-colonized area in Brazil and in 1942 he and his wife were found dead from a barbiturate overdose. Zweig considered it an honor when his books were burned during the Nazi book-burning along with other great German authors such as Brecht, Heine, Remarque, Einstein, etc.
July 24, 2017
This psychological thriller is the equal of Poe's masterpieces. It is a story told within a story. A lawyer who helped the church and royalty of Austria shield their money from the Nazis ends up in custody. Left to solitary confinement, he finds his only way of keeping his sanity is to rehearse in his mind the great chess matches outlined in a book he stole. Eventually, he turns to the impossible task of playing games against himself. He divides himself into Black and White which eventually leads him to temporary insanity.
After his release and exile he finds himself on a ship with the world chess champion, whom he beats. During the rematch, the champion, who knows nothing but chess, discovers that delaying his moves leads the lawyer to insanity again as he divides his personality and demands that the moves be made.
Great story. Is there a larger message here? This was Zweig's last story before he and his wife took their own lives. Was this his way of conveying the point that mankind was locked in a battle with evil that he felt we could not win?
After his release and exile he finds himself on a ship with the world chess champion, whom he beats. During the rematch, the champion, who knows nothing but chess, discovers that delaying his moves leads the lawyer to insanity again as he divides his personality and demands that the moves be made.
Great story. Is there a larger message here? This was Zweig's last story before he and his wife took their own lives. Was this his way of conveying the point that mankind was locked in a battle with evil that he felt we could not win?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 2, 2021
Terbagi 2 judul novela. Konon, buku iji belum rampungsebab Stefan Zweig sudah keburu mati bundir.
Pertama, Amok.
Bercerita tentang seorang dokter yg tergila2 pada pasien. Hampir samar apa yg membuatnya terobsesi sampai rterjun bersama peti matinya beberapa waktu kemudian di pelabuhan. Tentu, samar. Semua itu diceritakannya pada kau, orang asing yang ditemuinya di geladak kapal dari hindia belanda menuju eropa. Siapa yang mau membongkar aibnya bahwa obsesinya itu cuma soal seks? Tapi, terlepas dari semua itu, tragis adalah tepat untuk nasib sang dokter.
Kedua, The Royal Game, yg menjadi judul buku ini.
Adalah tentang korban hitler, orang Austria, yang di suatu sore menyela pertandingan catur antara kau dan juara dunia, sang master catur. Ketidaksopanan kecil itu, kemudian ia ceritakan padamu bahwa ia pernah mengalami siksaan paling sadis oleh Nazi: dikurung dalam kesunyian paling murni selama setahun sampai gila. Dan, hanya catur yang menjadi penyelamat meski pada akhirnya jtu membunuhnya juga.
Kedua cerita, ditulis dengan teknik yang menarik, cerita berbingkai. Unik.
Pertama, Amok.
Bercerita tentang seorang dokter yg tergila2 pada pasien. Hampir samar apa yg membuatnya terobsesi sampai rterjun bersama peti matinya beberapa waktu kemudian di pelabuhan. Tentu, samar. Semua itu diceritakannya pada kau, orang asing yang ditemuinya di geladak kapal dari hindia belanda menuju eropa. Siapa yang mau membongkar aibnya bahwa obsesinya itu cuma soal seks? Tapi, terlepas dari semua itu, tragis adalah tepat untuk nasib sang dokter.
Kedua, The Royal Game, yg menjadi judul buku ini.
Adalah tentang korban hitler, orang Austria, yang di suatu sore menyela pertandingan catur antara kau dan juara dunia, sang master catur. Ketidaksopanan kecil itu, kemudian ia ceritakan padamu bahwa ia pernah mengalami siksaan paling sadis oleh Nazi: dikurung dalam kesunyian paling murni selama setahun sampai gila. Dan, hanya catur yang menjadi penyelamat meski pada akhirnya jtu membunuhnya juga.
Kedua cerita, ditulis dengan teknik yang menarik, cerita berbingkai. Unik.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 15, 2018
My mind was flying around the idea where does the talent stop and the hardwork start?
I felt powerful after I read this book, because I thought that I can do everything if i want it, everything is possible and everything is about choice and time and effort. But different things take different time and effort from different people and different nerves and vibes and thoughts and all of your mind if you go deeper into it. So yes, you can do everything you want, if it's worth the end result. And here we can ask ourselves what is it all about? Is it about talent, strenght, about being good, being genius? Is it going to actually make us happy? Such a small story and made my mind fly into so many directions, I loved it!
I felt powerful after I read this book, because I thought that I can do everything if i want it, everything is possible and everything is about choice and time and effort. But different things take different time and effort from different people and different nerves and vibes and thoughts and all of your mind if you go deeper into it. So yes, you can do everything you want, if it's worth the end result. And here we can ask ourselves what is it all about? Is it about talent, strenght, about being good, being genius? Is it going to actually make us happy? Such a small story and made my mind fly into so many directions, I loved it!
March 25, 2021
I read this collection of short stories because I'd heard of the title story and wanted to try reading it in the original German but also needed to read it simultaneously in translated English as my German isn't up to par. I liked the title story, and had I stopped after it, I'd likely have a good impression of Zweig. But of course I read the rest. The writing style and the focus on psychological storylines I kinda like. But it's marred by obvious racism and misogyny, which granted might be simply that Zweig is a product of his time, but I'm tired of 'classics' being justified in this manner when my time can be spent reading more enlightened writing.
August 15, 2022
I mainly checked this out due to Zweig's work being influential in Wes Anderson's the Grand Budapest Hotel. There is alot of articulate and unnecessary, but ultimately delicious writing in the majority of these stories to make up for some of their character's exaggerated mentality and prolonged events that almost insist upon their stories to be driven by tension whose resolution feels less earned than it should be. However, the two notable stories from this are "The Royal Game" and "Letters from an Unknown Woman" that just capture moments in time that made me care about them immensely to the point that I am glad I spent a long time to read this.
May 24, 2025
what is it about zweig's prose? the sentences don't exactly shine, they could hardly work as a tattoo or epigram, the sentiments they express are ones i often disagree with. his writing is just so absorbing and his stories so gripping. i think it's for this reason that, as far as a cursory glance at his mentions will reveal, he is so much a writer's writer. not a philosopher's writer, a filmmaker's writer, a politician's writer, a professor's writer, maybe not even a reader's writer. but for those who revel in the art, so often subordinated to others, of crafting a well-told tale, he's irresistible.
November 17, 2016
The Royal Game is a good tale which was made into the film "Brainwashed" that I saw many moons ago, but it was "The Burning Secret" that I liked best. Zweig [1881-1942] had a keen insight to the human mind, especially its darker side. Reference to nerves is quite frequent and more than once he had his characters with suicidal thoughts. Zweig himself committed suicide in a planned operation with his wife. However, the unhappy end should not dissuade one from enjoying these cleverly written stories.
November 7, 2018
All five stories here are remarkable, "The Royal Game", "Amok", and "Letter from an Unknown Woman" especially. Zweig really gets to the heart of experience and his characters' psyches in a way that's both penetrating and compassionate. There's moments in each of these stories that are just breathtaking. Amazing collection.
July 16, 2021
This was ok, but somehow seemed much older than it is, both in the somewhat mannered framing of both Amok and The Royal Game (both times encountering an enigmatic man on a long steamer voyage and hearing his story) and in that both stories felt like prototypes of other stories I’d read many times before.
February 16, 2021
five entertaining stories. I read this book and I wonder why it has taken me so many years to discover Zweig. If I had never heard of him any one of these five stories would make me wish to read more. Glad to have discovered him, even in my twilight years.
July 6, 2022
Un cuento largo o novela cortísima. Con un lenguaje hermoso y con el mundo del ajedrez de fondo y de cerca. Una reflexión sobre las maneras de escapar del ser humano y cómo estas te pueden llevar a otra trampa. Muy bien escrito. Muy amena su lectura.
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