Journey into the Past

A deep study of the unhappy heart by one of the masters of the psychological novel, Journey into the Past, here for the first time in America, is a previously unpublished novella that was found among Zweigrs"s stories after his death. Investigating the strange ways in which love, in spite of everything-time, war, betrayal-can last, Zweig tells the story of Louis, an ambitious young man from a modest background who falls in love with the wife of his rich employer. His love is returned, and indeed the couple vow to live together, but then Louis is sent to Mexico on business and, while he is away, the First World War breaks out. With travel and even communication across the Atlantic shut down, Louis makes a new life in Mexico. Years later, however, he returns to Germany to find his former beloved a widow and their feelings, though altered, no less engaged. Is it possible for love to survive precisely as the impossible?

Stefan Zweig (1881–1942) spent his youth studying philosophy and the history of literature in Vienna and belonged to a Pan-European cultural circle that included Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Richard Strauss. NYRB Classics publishes his novels Chess Story, Beware of Pity, and The Post-Office Girl.

Anthea Bell is an award-winning British translator who has translated numerous literary works, including W. G. Sebald’s Austerlitz, Wladyslaw Szpilman’s The Pianist, E.T.A. Hoffmann’s The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr, and the French Asterix comics. She lives in Cambridge, England