Therese
35: Auneninnunc
box 6/2
APRIL 1929
CONSTABLES MCNTHEF LIST
Artkur Schnitzler: A Writer Nor the Civilisea (cont.)
England has, during the last twenty years, had offered to her: Anatol, 7%e
Road to the Open (Der Weg ins Freie), Casanova’s Homecoming, Beatrice,
Frdulein E'se and a few other fragments fromthe huge storchonse of Schnitzler’s
dramatie fancy. No one of these works in English made the impression which
it deserved, althongh in the main the translations were good, although without
exception the original material was superb.
Why? Because Schnitzler disconcerts the unsophisticated Anglo-Saxon with
his aloof courtesy, his nonchalant sensuality, his absolute refusal to accept the
blacks and whites of sin and virtue which, in these backwoods of Great Britain,
do duty for social morality. Schnitzler disconcerts. He frightens—with his
freedom from prejudice, his wry sense of the cruelty and absurdity of life. And
those whose sentimentality has been challenged and bruised will not admit their
defeat, but try to shrug Schnitaler aside with the assumed boredom of a pseudo¬
worldliness, murmuring that foreigners have queer ideas and that Vienna is not
the sort of place they care to read abont.
Allof which would be merely ludicrous and of little enough importance to
Schnitzler himself, were it not that the various isolated attempts to gain him a
public in Eng’and have grievonsly scattered his books and tangled the rights in
them to a diflicult extent. Now, after patient negotiations and thanks to the
enthusiasm of one firm of publishers in America, of a firm of literary agents in
England, and of Constables themnselves¬the tangle has been more or less
straightened out. Schnitzler is going to have a clear chance to impose himself
on England as the masterof pathos and of bitter-sweet romance, which he surely
is. The process munt be gradualat first: Rhupsody was published iast autumn in
a lovely edition de luxe; Prdulein Mise will follow suit this autumn in
similarly beautiful undress. In between, two volumes will be published—one a
nei novel, the other a volume of novelettes —both in regulation commercial form
which can be had from the library or bought for 7s. 6d.
The novel is now imminent and we give below a brief idea of its content and
a reduced representation of its colour-jacket.
Next month in Constabte’s Monthly List we will give some of the facts of
Schnitzler’s life: later (perhaps the month after) a bibliography of his books;
later again a description of the novelettes. And so on.
It will be exciting to see whether this great artist cannot at last come into the
DUE FOR APRIL PUBLICATION
THERESA
The Story of a Woman’s Lise
Bu Arthur Schnitzler. 78. 6d. net.
Theresa escapes from the futile depravity of her
homne in Salzburg, and makes valiant endeavours to
wn her livelihood and independence as a governess
i Vienna. She passes from one family to another,
ds psendo-mother to one set of children after ancther,
Jonly to be cast adrift by her employers as soon as she
is no longer needed.
Her yoath and charm and zest for life entangle
her in many romantie adventures, as a result of
which she finds herself the real mother of an
illegitimate child, whom she is compelled to neglect
in ordertotendthe children of others. The develop¬
ment of her relation“ this child is the thread
upon which her subsequent adventures are strung,
and through it she is drawn into even deeper waters, until finally they close
(April 18)
over her head.
(4)
35: Auneninnunc
box 6/2
APRIL 1929
CONSTABLES MCNTHEF LIST
Artkur Schnitzler: A Writer Nor the Civilisea (cont.)
England has, during the last twenty years, had offered to her: Anatol, 7%e
Road to the Open (Der Weg ins Freie), Casanova’s Homecoming, Beatrice,
Frdulein E'se and a few other fragments fromthe huge storchonse of Schnitzler’s
dramatie fancy. No one of these works in English made the impression which
it deserved, althongh in the main the translations were good, although without
exception the original material was superb.
Why? Because Schnitzler disconcerts the unsophisticated Anglo-Saxon with
his aloof courtesy, his nonchalant sensuality, his absolute refusal to accept the
blacks and whites of sin and virtue which, in these backwoods of Great Britain,
do duty for social morality. Schnitzler disconcerts. He frightens—with his
freedom from prejudice, his wry sense of the cruelty and absurdity of life. And
those whose sentimentality has been challenged and bruised will not admit their
defeat, but try to shrug Schnitaler aside with the assumed boredom of a pseudo¬
worldliness, murmuring that foreigners have queer ideas and that Vienna is not
the sort of place they care to read abont.
Allof which would be merely ludicrous and of little enough importance to
Schnitzler himself, were it not that the various isolated attempts to gain him a
public in Eng’and have grievonsly scattered his books and tangled the rights in
them to a diflicult extent. Now, after patient negotiations and thanks to the
enthusiasm of one firm of publishers in America, of a firm of literary agents in
England, and of Constables themnselves¬the tangle has been more or less
straightened out. Schnitzler is going to have a clear chance to impose himself
on England as the masterof pathos and of bitter-sweet romance, which he surely
is. The process munt be gradualat first: Rhupsody was published iast autumn in
a lovely edition de luxe; Prdulein Mise will follow suit this autumn in
similarly beautiful undress. In between, two volumes will be published—one a
nei novel, the other a volume of novelettes —both in regulation commercial form
which can be had from the library or bought for 7s. 6d.
The novel is now imminent and we give below a brief idea of its content and
a reduced representation of its colour-jacket.
Next month in Constabte’s Monthly List we will give some of the facts of
Schnitzler’s life: later (perhaps the month after) a bibliography of his books;
later again a description of the novelettes. And so on.
It will be exciting to see whether this great artist cannot at last come into the
DUE FOR APRIL PUBLICATION
THERESA
The Story of a Woman’s Lise
Bu Arthur Schnitzler. 78. 6d. net.
Theresa escapes from the futile depravity of her
homne in Salzburg, and makes valiant endeavours to
wn her livelihood and independence as a governess
i Vienna. She passes from one family to another,
ds psendo-mother to one set of children after ancther,
Jonly to be cast adrift by her employers as soon as she
is no longer needed.
Her yoath and charm and zest for life entangle
her in many romantie adventures, as a result of
which she finds herself the real mother of an
illegitimate child, whom she is compelled to neglect
in ordertotendthe children of others. The develop¬
ment of her relation“ this child is the thread
upon which her subsequent adventures are strung,
and through it she is drawn into even deeper waters, until finally they close
(April 18)
over her head.
(4)