90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books

Following the death of his sister, middle-aged Dr Graesler leaves his winter home in Lanzarote for a health resort in Germany, where he practised medicine for many years. There he meets the Schleheim family, and is particularly drawn to their daughter Sabine. But a simple, stilted courtship soon unravels a web of hushed-up suicide and illicit sexual liaisons. Arthur Schnitzler’s tumultuous psychodrama remains as startling now as it did on first publication.

The extraordinary Viennese writer Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1910) was the son of a prominent Jewish laryngologist. Schnitzler studied medicine at Vienna University, but soon abandoned medicine for writing. From 1895, he attracted public attention as a dramatist. Concentrating on sex and death, his work shows a remarkable capacity to create atmosphere and to pursue profound, ruthless and often Freudian analysis of human motives.