Alexander Lernet-Holenia

At once a chase novel, black comedy, and softly keening death song, Count Luna starts off at a gallop and accelerates into warp speed

Count Luna

Described as 'a masterpiece' by Stefan Zweig, this extraordinary novel of love, war, ghosts and memory features an introduction by Patti Smith Baron Bagge, a cavalry officer in the Carpathian Mountains during the First World War, receives orders from his unhinged commander to ride into Russian machine guns. But instead of meeting certain death, he and his brigade pass, unscathed, into a peaceful, otherworldly country where festivities are in full swing. There he meets Charlotte Szent-Kiraly, and finds himself entangled in a strange love - a love harrowed at its edges by the threat of the enemy, and intimations from his fellow officers about the nature of his survival... Baron Bagge - Alexander Lernet-Holenia's masterpiece - glimmers with a wintry, exquisite light. A story of duty and desire, courage and stupidity, it is a waking dream of a novel; haunting in every sense. This edition includes an exchange between Lernet-Holenia and Stefan Zweig, one of the novella's most stalwart champions. Preface by Patti Smith Translated by Richard and Clara Winston

Baron Bagge

A taxi-driver in 1930s Vienna impersonates a murder victim-with unsettling consequences "One doesn't step into anyone's life, not even a dead man's, without having to live it to the end." A man climbs into Ferdinand Sponer's cab, gives the name of a hotel, and before he reaches it has been murdered: shot through the throat. And though Sponer has so far committed no crime, he is drawn into the late Jack Mortimer's life, and might not be able to escape its tangles and intrigues before it is too late... Twice filmed, I Was Jack Mortimer is a tale of misappropriated identity as darkly captivating and twisting as the books of Patricia Highsmith. Alexander Lernet-Holenia was born in Vienna in 1897. He served in the Austro-Hungarian army in the First World War and became a protégé of Rainer Maria Rilke. During his life he wrote poetry, novels, plays and was a successful screenwriter. His uneasy relationship with the National Socialist Party resulted in his removal from prominence in 1944, but after the end of the Second World War, he again became a vital figure in Austrian cultural life. He died in 1976.

I was Jack Mortimer

The Resurrection of Maltravers (Eridanos Press Library, No 12)

"First published in German in 1937 as Mona Lisa."--Title page verso.

Mona Lisa

El conde Luna

En octubre de 1918 un joven oficial del ejército imperial, el austriaco Herbert Menis, se reincorpora a filas tras un breve periodo de convalecencia. A su llegada a Belgrado, donde ha sido destinado, se enamora de Resa Lang, una joven dama de la corte de María Antonia de Austria, y decide conquistarla. -- Su romance se desarrollará en un ambiente lleno de contrastes: los fastos de la corte y los regimientos austrohúngaros frente a la crudeza y las privaciones de la guerra; la unidad de los oficiales frente a las disensiones en la tropa. Los protagonistas de la historia parecen estar fuera del tiempo, siguiendo unas tradiciones y un modo de vida que eran característicos del Imperio pero que ellos intuyen que están a punto de desaparecer. Publicada en 1934, El estandarte está considerada como una de las mejores novelas que se han escrito sobre el fin del Imperio Austrohúngaro. Novela de amor y aventuras, crónica de costumbres, este libro retrata como pocos el caos y el vacío generado por la caída y desintegración del Imperio.

El estandarte

Il giovane Moncada

Roman

Mars im Widder

A man climbs into Ferdinand Sponer's cab, gives the name of a hotel, and before he reaches it has been murdered: shot through the throat. And though Sponer has so far committed no crime, he is drawn into the late Jack Mortimer's life, and might not be able to escape its tangles and intrigues before it is too late... Twice filmed, I Was Jack Mortimer is a tale of misappropriated identity as darkly captivating and twisting as the books of Patricia Highsmith. "One doesn't step into anyone's life, not even a dead man's, without having to live it to the end." Pushkin Collection editions feature a spare, elegant series style and superior, durable components. The Collection is typeset in Monotype Baskerville, litho-printed on Munken Premium White Paper and notch-bound by the independently owned printer TJ International in Padstow. The covers, with French flaps, are printed on Colorplan Pristine White Paper. Both paper and cover board are acid-free and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified.

I Was Jack Mortimer

Gedichte

Die Titanen

Der Graf Luna

Il barone Bagge

Although this story of a romance between an aristocratic Wehrmacht officer and a mysterious woman in Vienna set against the 1939 invasion of Poland was deemed unacceptable fare for Third Reich readership due to its ambiguity, lack of heroic military images, and the sympathetic portrayal of a suffering Poland, the novel's actual purpose and highly subversive quality were hardly suspected by the Ministry of Propaganda."--Jacket.

Alexander Lernet-Holenia

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