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Chess

A Novel
Series: Penguin Archive
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Brief Description
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books My delight in playing turned to a lust for playing, my lust for playing into a compulsion to play, a mania, a frenetic fury that filled not only my waking hours but also came to invade my... Read More
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90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books

My delight in playing turned to a lust for playing, my lust for playing into a compulsion to play, a mania, a frenetic fury that filled not only my waking hours but also came to invade my sleep. I could think of nothing but chess, I thought only in chess moves and chess problems...

As a chess obsessive, what if you have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play the world champion, but it might send you to the edge of madness... and tip you over?

Chess by Stefan Zweig explores this gripping dilemma, weaving a tale of passion, obsession, and the thin line between genius and madness.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780241747292

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 17 April 2025

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Penguin Classics

Contributors:

  • Translated by Anthea Bell

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 6.0mm

Width: 112.0mm

Height: 182.0mm

Weight: 64g

Pages: 96

About the Author

Stefan Zweig was born in 1881 in Vienna to a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family. Recognition as a writer came early for Zweig; by the age of forty, he had already won literary fame. In 1934, with Nazism entrenched, Zweig left Austria for England, and became a British citizen in 1940. In 1941 he and his second wife went to Brazil, where they committed suicide. Zweig's best-known works of fiction are Beware of Pity (1939) and Chess (1942), but his most outstanding accomplishments were his many biographies, which were based on psychological interpretation.

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