Hugo von Hoffmannsthal made his mark as a poet, as a playwright, and as the librettist for Richard Strauss’s greatest operas, but he was no less accomplished

This is an essay in letter form, written in 1901. The fictitious writer is Philip, Lord Chandos, and the addressee is Francis Bacon. The letter is dated 22 Augu

In The Lord Chandos Letter, the author conjures a figure from the English Renaissance in order to write about a peculiarly modern crisis of the spirit.

Hugo von Hofmannsthal is one of the modern era's most important writers, but his fame as Richard Strauss's pioneering collaborator on such operas as Der Rosenka

Hermann Broch (1886-1951) is remembered among English-speaking readers for his novels The Sleepwalkers and The Death of Virgil, and among German-speaking reader