Vicki Baum's evocative historical novel recounts the lives of peasants and nobles in colonial Bali, reared against a backdrop of bloodshed and cultural invasion. Dutch imperialism brings upheaval and revolution to the beautiful island, and the Balinese rebel in what would become a powerful and poignant example of symbolic resistance. A Tale from Bali culminates with the historic Battle of Badung, in which thousands of Balinese soldiers, clothed in white and armed only with daggers, threw themselves upon the merciless efficiency of the Dutch guns.

Tale from Bali

Literature & Fiction

Baum, Vicki

Genre Fiction

Oxford Univ. Pr.

A grand hotel in the center of 1920s Berlin serves as a microcosm of the modern world in Vicki Baum’s celebrated novel, a Weimar-era best seller that retains all its verve and luster today. Among the guests of the hotel is Doctor Otternschlag, a World War I veteran whose face has been sliced in half by a shell. Day after day he emerges to read the paper in the lobby, discreetly inquiring at the desk if the letter he’s been awaiting for years has arrived. Then there is Grusinskaya, a great ballerina now fighting a losing battle not so much against age as against her fear of it, who may or may not be made for Gaigern, a sleek professional thief. Herr Preysing also checks in, the director of a family firm that isn’t as flourishing as it appears, who would never imagine that Kringelein, his underling, a timorous petty clerk he’s bullied for years, has also come to Berlin, determined to live at last now that he’s received a medical death sentence. All these characters and more, with all their secrets and aspirations, come together and come alive in the pages of Baum’s delicious and disturbing masterpiece.

Grand Hotel

Contemporary

Macmillan

Set against the backdrop of the Dutch invasion of Bali just over a century ago, and the resulting "mass suicides" of the Balinese royalty, the moving story unfolds of the peasant Pak and his family and friends, and the tragedy that is their shared fate. Written within living memory of the bloody events called the puputan (the "ending"), Love and Death in Bali is the story of a passionate yet peaceful and deeply spiritual people who defy the Dutch imperial forces through an act that would bring them certain death—and certain rebirth. The looting of a Chinese trading ship gives the Dutch colonial forces the perfect excuse to intervene in island affairs, but they encounter astonishing resistance. In the battle of Badung, wave upon wave of Balinese clothed in white ceremonial garb charged into the blazing Dutch guns, kris daggers in hand, prepared to die. Who among them will survive, and how will their lives be forever changed? Love and Death in Bali, first published in German in 1937, is considered by many to be the finest novel ever written about this island paradise where everyone, regardless of caste or position, is woven into the fabric of an ancient culture, connected by customs and, above all, by strong religious beliefs. now reissued in a completely re-edited edition under its original title, with an introduction by anthropologist and award-winning author Nigel Barkley.

Love and Death in Bali (Periplus Classics Series)

Tuttle+publishing

Dramatizes the personal experiences of the guests and staff of an exclusive metropolitan hotel

Amereon Ltd

Shanghai '37;

Doubleday, Doran

Helene

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

History

Hesperides Press

HELENE by VICKI BAUM "THE young girl sat in a fourthclass carriage of a local train, which was making its way with considerable speed through the night, in order to reach the main station at Frankfurt at the scheduled time. The February night seemed to consist entirely of black glass, lit occasionally by flashes from the windows of passr ing trains and then becoming opaque again, streaked with black rivulets of rain blown on small gusts of wind from the northeast. The air in this fourthclass carriage was heavy beneath the small, gloomy gasjets and the panes were fogged with the breath of sleeping humanity. The young girl, Fraulein Willfuera student of chemistry, to be exactwas not, however, asleep, but was sitting up right on the seat, with a tired and yet alert expression on her face. She had given up her corner seat to a woman who was holding a baby on her kp and was apparently expecting another child a young, wornout, working woman, who let her mouth fall open in sleep and was continually sinking forward, so that the baby was k constant danger of falling, and each time Fraulein Willfuer came to the rescue and prevented the fall. This was on her left. On her right sat an old man who smelt unpleasantly and pillowed his head on her shoulder in ordet to sleep comfortably. Opposite her was a youth dreaming some terrible dream that caused him to bare his teeth. Although none of this was particularly pleasing, and although Helene Willfuer herself had good cause, for sadness, she suddenly started to smile. Alone and awake amid these pitiful sleeping bundles of humanity, she was forced to smileat these people as well as at herself. Behind her smile there was, however, something else triumph, success, an obstacle overcome. I have done it, she thought and the rattle of the windows and the clack of the wheels over the track took up the thought aod echoed it rhythmically in her brain. As the train increased its speed on nearing its destination, the refrain was shortened, and to an everquickening accompani ment of w Done, done, done it Hdene Willfuer rose and gathered together her luggage. Lights, signals, shrieks from the engine, the mirror of the Rivet Main below, a prolonged rumble over a bridge between the first houses of a large town. Helenes neighbours wakened and exchanged a few words with one another. Did the young kdy live there ? asked the youth sitting opposite her. No, she was changing there, and going mrther, said Fraulein Willfuer. What a pity 1 He would have liked to have shown her the way, said the youth The young mother asked in a husky voice if the young Jady would hold the child for a moment."

A grand hotel in the center of 1920s Berlin serves as a microcosm of the modern world in Vicki Baum’s celebrated novel, a Weimar-era best seller that retains all its verve and luster today. Among the guests of the hotel is Doctor Otternschlag, a World War I veteran whose face has been sliced in half by a shell. Day after day he emerges to read the paper in the lobby, discreetly inquiring at the desk if the letter he’s been awaiting for years has arrived. Then there is Grusinskaya, a great ballerina now fighting a losing battle not so much against age as against her fear of it, who may or may not be made for Gaigern, a sleek professional thief. Herr Preysing also checks in, the director of a family firm that isn’t as flourishing as it appears, who would never imagine that Kringelein, his underling, a timorous petty clerk he’s bullied for years, has also come to Berlin, determined to live at last now that he’s received a medical death sentence. All these characters and more, with all their secrets and aspirations, come together and come alive in the pages of Baum’s delicious and disturbing masterpiece.

Grand Hotel (New York Review Books Classics)

United States

NYRB Classics

Book Description\nBerlin, fin des années 20. Quelques personnages se croisent dans le hall ¿ et les chambres ¿ d'un palace, où chacun croit avoir trouvé le lieu de son destin. La gloire éteinte d'une chanteuse sur le déclin, les illusions d'un baron cambrioleur perdu par les femmes, l'outrecuidance d'un industriel affolé par l'odeur de l'argent, la tristesse d'un commis anxieux de claquer ses pauvres deniers avant la lente agonie annoncée par les médecins, les émois d'une jeune fille blonde qui pose nue pour les peintres à la mode ¿ le tout sous l'œil unique, impitoyable, d'un dandy blessé de guerre, morphinomane extralucide. Il ne voit en tout cela qu'une danse macabre, qu'une sarabande vouée au néant. L'hôtel semble être le lieu où se sont donné rendez-vous tous les mauvais rêves d'une Europe déjà promise au pire. La grande Vicki Baum (1888-1960) ose tout. Elle sait combiner comme nul autre l'art du roman à l'américaine et une noirceur, une lucidité tout autrichiennes. Le résultat: un récit à l'écriture subtile qui emporte, et dont l'adaptation au cinéma en 1932 avec Greta Garbo et Joan Crawford connut un succès prodigieux. On lui doit aussi Shangaï Hôtel (Phébus «Libretto», 1999) et Ulle (Phébus, 2006).\nFrom the Back Cover\nBerlin, fin des années 20. Quelques personnages se croisent dans le hall ¿ et les chambres ¿ d'un palace, où chacun croit avoir trouvé le lieu de son destin. La gloire éteinte d'une chanteuse sur le déclin, les illusions d'un baron cambrioleur perdu par les femmes, l'outrecuidance d'un industriel affolé par l'odeur de l'argent, la tristesse d'un commis anxieux de claquer ses pauvres deniers avant la lente agonie annoncée par les médecins, les émois d'une jeune fille blonde qui pose nue pour les peintres à la mode ¿ le tout sous l'œil unique, impitoyable, d'un dandy blessé de guerre, morphinomane extralucide. Il ne voit en tout cela qu'une danse macabre, qu'une sarabande vouée au néant. L'hôtel semble être le lieu où se sont donné rendez-vous tous les mauvais rêves d'une Europe déjà promise au pire. La grande Vicki Baum (1888-1960) ose tout. Elle sait combiner comme nul autre l'art du roman à l'américaine et une noirceur, une lucidité tout autrichiennes. Le résultat: un récit à l'écriture subtile qui emporte, et dont l'adaptation au cinéma en 1932 avec Greta Garbo et Joan Crawford connut un succès prodigieux. On lui doit aussi Shangaï Hôtel (Phébus «Libretto», 1999) et Ulle (Phébus, 2006).

GRAND HOTEL

LIBRETTO

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Books by Baum, Vicki

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Baum, Vicki. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Tale from Bali

Grand Hotel

Love and Death in Bali (Periplus Classics Series)

Grand Hotel

Shanghai '37;

Helene

Helene

Grand Hotel (New York Review Books Classics)

Grand Hotel (New York Review Books Classics)

GRAND HOTEL