Stefan Zweig Stefan Zweig ( November 28 , 1881 – February 22 , 1942 ) was an Austrian writer . Stefan Zweig Life and work Stefan Zweig was a very well-known writer in the 1920s and 1930s , but since his death in 1942 his work has become less familiar to the general reading public . Zweig wrote novels and short stories , and several biographies , of which the most famous is probably that of Mary Stuart . This was published in German as Maria Stuart and in English as ( The ) Queen of Scots or Mary , Queen of Scotland and the Isles . At one time his works were published in English under the pseudonym `` Stephen Branch '' ( a translation of his real name ) , when anti-German sentiment was running high . His biography of Queen Marie-Antoinette was later adapted for a Hollywood movie starring the MGM actress Norma Shearer in the title role . Born in Vienna , Zweig was the son of Moritz Zweig , a wealthy Jewish textile manufacturer , and Ida ( Brettauer ) Zweig , the daughter of an Italian banking family . He studied philosophy and the history of literature , and in Vienna he was associated with the avant garde Young Vienna movement . Jewish religion did not play a central role in his education . `` My mother and father were Jewish only through accident of birth , `` Zweig said later in an interview . Although his essays were published in the Neue Freie Presse , whose literary editor was the Zionist leader Theodor Herzl , Zweig was not attracted to Herzl 's Jewish nationalism . Zweig fled Austria in 1934 following Hitler 's rise to power . He was famously defended by the composer Richard Strauss who refused to remove Zweig 's name ( as librettist ) from the posters for the premiere , in Dresden , of his opera Die schweigsame Frau ( The Silent Woman ) . This led to Hitler refusing to come to the premiere as planned ; the opera was banned after three performances . Zweig then lived in England ( in Bath and London ) , before moving to the United States . In 1941 he went to Brazil , where in 1942 he and his second wife Lotte ( née Charlotte Elisabeth Altmann ) committed suicide together in Petrópolis using the barbiturate Veronal , despairing at the future of Europe and its culture . `` I think it better to conclude in good time and in erect bearing a life in which intellectual labour meant the purest joy and personal freedom the highest good on earth , `` he wrote . His autobiography The World of Yesterday is a paean to the European culture he considered lost . There are significant Zweig collections at the British Library and at State University of New York at Fredonia . The BL Zweig collection , given to the library by its trustees in May 1986 , includes a wide range of items of surprising variety and rarity , among them Mozart 's own Verzeichnüss , that is , the composer 's own handwritten thematic catalogue of his works . Stefan Zweig by Friderika Zweig ( Thomas Y. Crowell Company , 1946 ) ASIN : B0007DK0G4 is an account by his first wife , telling , inter alia , of the breakup of the marriage . The German writer Stefanie Zweig ( b. 1932 ) is not related to Stefan Zweig . Bibliography Fiction The Love of Erika Wald ( 1904 ) ( Die Liebe der Erika Wald ) Fear ( 1920 ) ( Angst ) The Eyes of My Brother , Forever ( 1922 ) ( Die Augen des Ewigen Bruders ) Amok ( 1922 ) , his most famous novel . Also includes the following six short stories : Twilight , The Cross , A Lazy Man , Moonbeam Alley , Leporella and The Refugee The Invisible Collection ( 1926 ) ( Die Unsichtbare Sammlung ) The Refugee ( 1927 ) ( Der Flüchtling ) Confusion of feelings or Confusion : The Private Papers of Privy Councillor R. Von D ( 1927 ) ( Verwirrung der Gefühle ) Kleine Chronik ( 1929 ) ( Short stories ) is a volume of short story , Buchmendel among them . Buchmendel ( 1929 ) Gessammelte Erzälungen ( 1936 ) ( Collected Narrations ) consists of two volumes of short stories : 1 . Die Kette ( The Chains ) and 2 . Kaleidoscop ( Caleidoscope ) . The second volume includes : Casual Knowledge of a Craft , Leporella , Fear , Burning Secret , Summer Novella , The governess , Buchmendel , The Refugee , The Invisible Collection , Fantastic Night and Moonbeam Alley Beware of Pity ( 1938 ) ( Ungeduld des Herzens ) Letter From An Unknown Woman ( Brief einer Unbekannten ) a short novella , year of original publishing unknown . Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman ( Vierundzwanzig Stunden aus dem Leben einer Frau ) a short novella , year of original publishing unknown . Burning Secret ( Brennedes Geheimnis ) a short novella , year of original publishing unknown . The Royal Game or Chess Story ( Schachnovelle ) ( 1941 ) , his most famous novella , about a man 's obsession with chess , formed in the captivity of the Gestapo . Most recent translation by Joel Rotenberg , New York Review Books , 2006 . ISBN 1-59017-169-1 . Rausch der Verwandlung ( The Intoxication of Metamorphosis ) is a posthumously published novel and one of his literary feats in fiction . Biographies Joseph Fouché ( 1929 ) Mental Healers ( Franz Mesmer , Mary Baker Eddy , Sigmund Freud ) ( 1932 ; German : Heilung durch den Geist , 1931 ) - a short three-part work consisting of three individual biographies . The driving idea of this work is that Christian Science , the spiritualist religion founded by Mary Baker Eddy , and Psychoanalysis , the medical and literary movement founded by Sigmund Freud , are both rooted in the discoveries of a misunderstood scientist and hypnotist of the 18th century , Franz Mesmer . Conqueror of the seas  : the story of Magellan ( 1938 ) Nietzsche Marie Antoinette ( 1932 ) Erasmus ( 1934 ) Romain Rolland : The Man and His Works ( 1921 ) Paul Verlaine Balzac ( 1922 ) , published alone or included in the three-part book Three Masters : Balzac , Dickens , Dostoeffsky . Mary , Queen of Scotland and the Isles ( 1935 ) ( also published as ( The ) Queen of Scots ) Sebastian Castellio - The Right to Heresy , or how John Calvin killed a Conscience Magellan ( 1938 ) . Amerigo ( 1942 ) . Balzac ( 1946 ) External links Zweig Collection at the British Library Zweig collection at the Daniel A Reed Library , Fredonia College , SUNY StefanZweig.org StefanZweig . de PushkinPress.com A lengthy review of Beware of Pity June 2006 Categories : 1881 births | 1942 deaths | Austrian novelists | Austrian writers | Jewish writers | Austrian journalists | Austrian dramatists and playwrights | Austrian biographers | Drug-related deaths | Drug-related suicides | Writers who committed suicide | Young Vienna In other languages : Български | Brezhoneg | Català | Česky | Dansk | Deutsch | Eesti | Español | Esperanto | Français | Hrvatski | Italiano | עברית | Nederlands | 日本語 | Norsk ( bokmål ) | Polski | Português | Русский | Slovenčina | Svenska | Tiếng Việt | Türkçe | 中文 