'One of the great memoirs of the twentieth century' David Hare 'A marvellous recapturing of a Europe that Hitler and his thugs destroyed' John Banville Stefan Zweig's seminal memoir recalls the golden age of pre-war Europe-its seeming permanence, its promise and its devastating fall. Through the story of his life and his relationships with the leading literary figures of the day, Zweig's fervent, evocative prose paints a stunning portrait of an era that danced brilliantly on the brink of extinction. This translation by the award-winning Anthea Bell captures the passionate fluency of Zweig's writing in arguably his most important work, completed the day before his suicide in 1942-a unique elegy for a lost world of peace and security.