The world of yesterday

Stefan Zweigs autobiography The World of Yesterday which he published in 1942 before taking his own life has become a standard in the memoir genre. The biography which was first published under the title Three Lives details life in Hitlers early years the era between the two world wars and late Austro-Hungarian Empire Vienna. In the 1920s and 1930s Stefan Zweig was among the most well-known authors in the world particularly in the United States South America and Europe. He wrote biographies dramas novels and journalism. With his series of five miniature historical portraits known as Sternstunden der Menschheit (1928; The Tide of Fortune) he became well-known. He penned comprehensive biographies of Mary Stuart (1935) Joseph Fouché a French statesman and others that were more intuitive than objective. His tales appear among others in Verwirrung der Gefühle (1925; Conflicts). He also translated the works of Charles Baudelaire Paul Verlaine and Emile Verhaeren in addition to writing the psychological novel Ungeduld des Herzens (1938; Beware of Pity). The Austrian author Stefan Zweig was born on November 28 1881 in Vienna and died on February 23 1942 in Petrópolis Brazil. The Austrian writer came from an upper-class Jewish family. He studied philosophy and German in Vienna and Berlin. In 1904 he received his doctorate (Dr. phil.) and he travelled to Europe America Africa and India. Stefan Zweigs autobiography is titled as “The World of Yesterday: Memories of a European” (in German Die Welt von Gestern: Erinnerungen eines Europäers). Zweig also discusses Viennas societys stability following centuries of Habsburg control in what has been dubbed the most famous book on the Habsburg Empire. This great book is also translated in more than 30 languages.