Schnitzler's Century: The Making of Middle-Class Culture, 1815-1914 - Hardcover

Gay, Peter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393048934 ISBN 13: 9780393048933

Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc, 2001

Synopsis

Documents the extraordinary rise of the middle class by focusing on Viennese playwright Arthur Schnitzler, who defined the mores of the nineteenth century, and challenges the many theories from such intellectual innovators as Darwin and Freud, presenting a century filled with science and superstition, revolutionaries and reactionaries, and eros and anxiety. 25,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

Prolific author Peter Gay describes the rise of the middle class in the 19th century through an unexpected lens: the life of Viennese playwright Arthur Schnitzler. Yet Gay's themes are much larger than the somewhat obscure Schnitzler: "If we may call [my book] a biography at all, it is one of a class," he writes. Schnitzler's Century necessarily focuses on the Victorians--a term often applied only to the British, but here extended to all of Europe and the United States--and Gay seeks to portray them in their complexity and diversity. "There are many people who think they have grasped the Victorian mentality when they have smiled at gushy keepsakes, maudlin poems, shy euphemisms, silences about matters that matter," he writes. In fact, "they lived with their eyes open." Gay has written a history of habits, with close attention paid to sexual ones. It is the sort of provocative book that the stereotypical Victorian would want to see removed from the storefront window--but also would want to peek at when nobody else was looking. --John Miller

About the Author:

Peter Gay is the author of more than forty books, including the best-selling Freud: A Life for Our Times and the National Book Award winner The Enlightenment.

About this edition

• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0393048934
• ISBN 13: 9780393048933
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 366