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Stefan Zweig

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:10,000.00 - 15,000.00 USD
Stefan Zweig

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Auction Date:2018 May 09 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:236 Commercial St., Suite 100, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
Notable collection of seven TLSs in German, each signed “Stefan Zweig,” ten total pages, ranging in size from 7.75 x 5.5 to 9 x 11.5, dated between 1930 to 1933 in Salzburg, and from 1934 to 1937 in London. Addressed to fellow writer and European exile Felix Wittmer, the letters are composed in a kind and encouraging tone, providing the younger writer with suggestions for improving and marketing his poetry and plays, as well as offering material advice and offers of connections in the field. Complete translations of the letters are available on request.

The first letter, November 17, 1930, finds Zweig saying apologetically that he would like to help Wittmer get his poems published by a good publisher, but "the very word 'poems' nowadays frightens them away," and he suggests that Wittmer might himself pay for their printing. Another letter, undated, invites Wittmer to use or send to a magazine, explaining and defending the possible historical inaccuracies in his depiction of John Sutter, the Swiss pioneer of the California Gold Rush, in his Sternstunden der Menschheit. The final letter from Salzburg, September 11, 1933, expresses Zweig's "sincere but deeply shaken feelings" towards Wittmer, who had been "caught up in this calamity" as the Nazis rose to power. Zweig writes that he would like to help Wittmer find work in Paris, but that "abstract recommendations are without value…I am unhappy I can't even counsel you as to what to do…the immense blow has hit me only inwardly, and has lamed the will to write."

Writing from London, April 27, 1934, Zweig (now busy even in exile with social engagements and "reading the proofs of my biography of Erasmus") compliments Wittmer's "beautiful theater play: I liked it very much. It is effective without being sentimental,” and suggests inserting some songs, "In this way you'd add color and release tension into the sinister ending." A month later, May 23, 1934, Zweig advises Wittmer to send his play to an agency in Paris, suggesting that he "simply refer to me. If these gentlemen do not also work for the theatre, they will doubtless send you to the right people." Another short letter from London, October 22, 1934, mentions that the two men will meet the next year in America, and that Zweig has made some contacts in regards to publishing a novel of Wittmer's, but "the foreign publishers' market in this field is limited." Zweig's last letter to Wittmer, May 31, 1937, heaps compliments on his latest book, Flood-Light on Europe: "I do not recall any political book which exposes in such shattering and exciting manner the contrast between words and deeds, propagandistic lies and the bloody truth." The collection includes several facsimile copies and English translations. In overall fine condition. Accompanied by three facsimile letters from Zweig to Wittmer, dated October 15, 1930, June 6, 1931, and October 22, 1934, a TLS from Wittmer to the original purchaser of the letters, dated March 5, 1978, and a later reprint sepia photograph of Zweig.

A novelist, playwright, journalist, and biographer, Zweig made his name in the inter-war period as the author of novels and biographies. After the rise of the Nazi party, his Jewish background meant that his work was banned and his books burned in the Third Reich. He fled Austria for London in 1934 and continued westwards to the United States and then to Brazil with his second wife in 1940. In desperation over the horrors continuing in Europe, the two committed suicide together in 1942. Zweig was also a prolific autograph collector and his massive collection of musical and literary manuscripts resides at the British Library. Felix Wittmer, Zweig's correspondent, was also a European exile and the author of several books on history, and apparently also of poetry and plays. He worked as a college professor in the United States in 1927-1928, and edited an American edition of Zweig's Sternstunden der Menschheit, which was published in 1931.