Alexander Lernet-Holenia

Vienna, 1939. Count Wallmoden, an officer and veteran of the First World War, is preparing to take part in a mysterious ‘military exercise’. One evening, while off duty, he meets the austere and beautiful Baroness Pistohlkors, whose secretive nature and elusive circle of acquaintances suggest that things – including the ‘military exercise’ – are not quite what they seem. Forced to leave the Baroness, Wallmoden promises to return for a tryst once his tour of duty is over, only to discover his unit has been mobilised for war. He finds himself over the border, marching across Europe – and, more seductively, stumbling to and fro over the border that separates the living from the dead. One constant remains: in this world or the next, he must keep his tryst with Baroness Pistohlkors. Simultaneously a ghost story drawing on the phantasms of the unconscious mind, a thriller where the erotic and the supernatural converge, and a shockingly realist account of the German Wehrmacht’s invasion of Poland, the novel Mars in Aries was refused a publishing permit by the Nazis, hinting as it did at the existence of an Austrian resistance. The book’s entire print run was put into storage and subsequently destroyed by an Allied air raid. Reprinted from the author’s proofs after the war, Mars in Aries is one of Alexander Lernet-Holenia’s finest and most celebrated novels.

90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin BooksBaron Bagge, a cavalry officer during the First World War, receives orders from his unhinged commander to ride into Russian machine guns. But instead of meeting certain death, he and his brigade pass, unscathed, into a peaceful, otherworldly country where festivities are in full swing… Alexander Lernet-Holenia, championed in his lifetime by Roberto Calasso, Stefan Zweig and Rainer Maria Rilke, triumphs in this dreamlike novel of mystery and yearning.

'A fascinating snapshot of Vienna between the wars, pacey and entertaining' Guardian A man climbs into Ferdinand Sponer's cab and asks to be taken to the Hotel Bristol. Before he reaches his destination he has been murdered: shot through the throat. Though Sponer has committed no crime, he is drawn into the late Jack Mortimer's life. As the police circle closer, Sponer finds himself caught up in a tangled web of intrigue. I Was Jack Mortimer is a breathless, darkly captivating tale of misappropriated identity from one of the leading Austrian writers of the twentieth century.

'A masterpiece' Stefan Zweig'Compelling ... intense ... blending military narratives, paranormal experiences and erotic obsessions' TLSBaron Bagge, a cavalry officer during the First World War, receives orders from his unhinged commander to ride into Russian machine guns. But instead of meeting certain death, he and his brigade pass, unscathed, into a peaceful, otherworldly country where festivities are in full swing. There he finds himself entangled in a strange love, yet is harrowed by the threat of the enemy, and intimations from his fellow officers about the nature of his survival. A story of duty and desire, courage and stupidity, Baron Bagge is a waking dream of a novel.

'A book so astonishing that I immediately reread it, fearful it might disappear' Patti SmithThe war is over but Alexander Jessiersky, a wealthy Austrian aristocrat and industrialist, is haunted by guilt over the neighbour he inadvertently sent to a concentration camp, Count Luna. What's more, he is convinced that Luna survived - and is out to get his revenge. So begins a wild, weird cat-and-mouse chase that takes him and his shadowy nemesis through windswept valleys, eerie houses and, eventually, Rome's catacombs, as an increasingly paranoid Jessiersky asks himself: will Luna stop at nothing to exact his bloody vengeance? Crazed, raging and darkly comic, Count Luna is a reckoning with postwar guilt, and an irresistible tale of the uncanny.'Like Kafka ... Lernet-Holenia weaves his most intimate hopes and dreams ... with exquisitely imagined detail' Chicago Tribune

Nojabr 1918 goda, poslednjaja nedelja Pervoj mirovoj vojny i suschestvovanija Avstro-Vengerskoj imperii. Vsego za neskolko sutok ot znamenitogo dragunskogo polka ostaetsja gorstka ofitserov, s riskom probirajuschikhsja iz Belgrada domoj, v Avstriju. 19-letnij praporschik, pomimo sobstvennoj zhizni, dolzhen spasti Shtandart svoego polka i devushku, vstrechennuju tri dnja nazad i porazivshuju ego silnee, chem vse vojska protivnika vmeste vzjatye. No trudnee vsego, dobravshis do rodnoj Veny, okazyvaetsja najti sebja v poslevoennoj zhizni, v novoj strane i v novom mire. Aleksandr Lernet-Kholenia (1897-1976) - vydajuschijsja avstrijskij pisatel i dramaturg, uchastnik opisyvaemykh v romane sobytij, laureat premii Genrikha Klejsta (1926) i Bolshoj gosudarstvennoj premii (1961), prezident avstrijskogo PEN-kluba. Roman "Shtandart" (1934), kak i ostalnye knigi pisatelja, byl zapreschen v Tretem Rejkhe, no polzovalsja bolshim uspekhom do i posle natsistskogo desjatiletija. Perevodchik: Balaeva Svetlana

Described as 'a masterpiece' by Stefan Zweig, this extraordinary novel of love, war, ghosts and memory features an introduction by Patti SmithBaron Bagge, a cavalry officer in the Carpathian Mountains during the First World War, receives orders from his unhinged commander to ride into Russian machine guns. But instead of meeting certain death, he and his brigade pass, unscathed, into a peaceful, otherworldly country where festivities are in full swing. There he meets Charlotte Szent-Kiraly, and finds himself entangled in a strange love - a love harrowed at its edges by the threat of the enemy, and intimations from his fellow officers about the nature of his survival... Baron Bagge - Alexander Lernet-Holenia's masterpiece - glimmers with a wintry, exquisite light. A story of duty and desire, courage and stupidity, it is a waking dream of a novel; haunting in every sense. This edition includes an exchange between Lernet-Holenia and Stefan Zweig, one of the novella's most stalwart champions. Preface by Patti SmithTranslated by Richard and Clara Winston

A novel of love and valor, war and stupidity, life and death (as well as what may lay beyond our mortal coils), Baron Bagge concerns a young Austrian cavalry lieutenant in the Carpathian mountains at the beginning of WWI. The baron leads a desperate charge across a bridge to meet the Russian forces, following the orders of his mentally unstable commander: "We were soon to have proof of his unreliability... But perhaps it is not right to place the blame on him. Perhaps his foolishness was merely the instrument of fate, and the disaster into which he led his squadron, the slaughter of so many men and horses, took place in order that something which could no longer happen within the realm of the living--because it was too late--could happen after life." And, swaying in a kind of fugue, the baron wanders off the bridge into unknown realms, where--mesmerized by Lernet-Holenia's phosphorescent style--the reader joins his waking dream.

At the start of WWII, Alexander Jessiersky, an Austrian aristocrat, heads a great Viennese shipping company. He detests the Nazis, and when his board of directors asks him to go along with confiscating a neighbor’s large parcel of land for their thriving wartime business, Jessiersky refuses. Yet, without his knowledge, the board succeeds in sending the owner of the land, a certain Count Luna, to a Nazi concentration camp on a trumped-up charge. Years later the war is over, but after a series of mysterious events, Jessiersky, deeply paranoid, becomes convinced that Count Luna has survived and seeks vengeance; driven to kill the source of his dread, he decides to hunt down Luna—and his years-long chase after the spectral count finally takes him deep into the catacombs of Rome… The nightmare logic of Count Luna comes from deep within Jessiersky’s festering fears and serves up his brooding, insanity-spiced, delicious disquisitions—on what the Etruscans knew, on cemeteries as originally “sleeping places”—before coming at last to death itself: “Well, well, well, thought Jessiersky, swallowing hard. So you do die after all. You refuse to believe that someday you will die but then you die. And you don’t even notice it. And yet the fact that you don’t is the best thing about dying...”

A man climbs into Ferdinand Sponer's cab, gives the name of a hotel, and before he reaches it has been murdered: shot through the throat. And though Sponer has so far committed no crime, he is drawn into the late Jack Mortimer's life, and might not be able to escape its tangles and intrigues before it is too late... Twice filmed, I Was Jack Mortimer is a tale of misappropriated identity as darkly captivating and twisting as the books of Patricia Highsmith.