Young Törless

A very good copy, points bumped, dust jacket lightly foxed to back panel and verso, some rubbing to edges.

Robert Musil's first novel, Young Törless, was loosely based on his own experiences as a student at a boarding school in the Austro-Hungarian empire. It caused a scandal for its frank depictions of violence and sex when it was first published in German in 1906. A parable of sorts on power and its misuse, the book has since been read as prefiguring the rise of Fascism. The first English translation, currently in stock in our rare book room, didn't appear until 1955, following the translation of his masterpiece, the monumental, unfinished and perhaps unfinishable Man Without Qualities. Living in exile, his work banned by the Nazis, Musil was almost forgotten at his death in 1942, but he was rediscovered in the post-War years and is now considered one of the great Modernist authors