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One of two beautifully designed hardback gift editions of Stefan Zweig's breathlessly dramatic historical sketches, out in time for the holidays.
Millions of people in a nation are necessary for a single genius to arise, millions of tedious hours must pass before a truly historic shooting star of humanity appears in the sky.
Five vivid dramatizations of some of the most pivotal episodes in human history, from the Discovery of the Pacific to the composition of the Marseillaise, bringing the past to life in brilliant technicolor.
Included in this collection:
"Flight into Immortality": Vasco Núñez de Balboa's quest to be the first European to see the Pacific Ocean.
"The Resurrection of George Frederic Handel": Handel falls into depression until a poet sends him an inspirational work.
"The Genius of a Night": Captain Rouget writes La Marseillaise, the song which is to become the French national anthem.
"The Discovery of El Dorado": John Sutter founds New Helvetia in western America and attempts to keep it.
"The First Word to Cross the Ocean": Cyrus W. Field resolves to lay the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable.
Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweig (1881-1942), novelist, biographer, poet, and translator, was born in Vienna into a wealthy Austrian Jewish family. During the 1930s, he was one of the bestselling writers in Europe, and was among the most translated German-language writers before the Second World War. With the rise of Nazism, he moved from Salzburg to London (taking British citizenship), to New York, and finally to Brazil, where he committed suicide with his wife. New York Review Books has published Zweig's novels The Post-Office Girl and Beware of Pity as well as the novella Chess Story.
More by Stefan Zweig
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