In his memoirs, which he finished writing in February 1942, Stefan Zweig recalled the first days of the war in 1914. In a belligerent world, friendship had become a trying matter. A letter arrived in Vienna from Romain Rolland, with the line: 'Non, je ne quitterai jamais mes amis.'

It was, considered Zweig, a time still more civilised than the Second War, when the printed words of intellectuals no longer carried weight.

A new translation from the German into French and English, this book is part of the Luminary Collection.