After a more than decade-long hiatus, Stefan Zweig resumed keeping a journal in the autumn of 1931. As Zweig himself explains at the beginning of the volume, his specific motivation was the death of Arthur Schnitzler, but he also points to the political circumstances as a reason for wishing to keep a record of the day-to-day events of his life. Schnitzler’s death, following that of Rainer Maria Rilke (in 1926) and of Hugo von Hofmannsthal (in 1929), marked the passing of yet another colleague whom Zweig had known well and whom he had admired since his earliest days as a writer.

The space of the diary also covers Zweig’s 50th birthday on November 28, 1931, which he celebrated not at his Salzburg home, but with his colleague Carl Zuckmayer in Munich. Literary projects discussed in some detail include work on his biography of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, usually referenced in the journal by “M.A.”, and his communications with Richard Strauss, for whose opera Die schweigsame Frau (The Silent Woman) Zweig wrote the libretto. At some later point, Zweig added a note in blue crayon on the book’s title page, “Richard Strauss darin” (“Richard Strauss inside”) – probably in the course of preparations for his autobiographical work, Die Welt von Gestern (The World of Yesterday), in which he provides an extensive account of his collaboration with Strauss.

Zweig rarely provides exact references for his quotations, yet all his historico-biographical studies were based on a close examination of original documents and primary sources.

17 bookmarks with his handwritten notes have survived, formerly inserted between the pages of two 1840 volumes reprinting the Parisian newspaper Le Moniteur Universel from 1793, through which Stefan Zweig worked his way in the course of his research. One by one, he tore and cut narrow strips from various pieces of paper, including a draft letter, an Insel Verlag envelope addressed to him, and a pre-printed form. While the set used by Zweig is no longer extant, the books must still have been available to the actor Georg Marischka, in whose estate the bookmarks were discovered: happily, he took care to note the precise volume and page numbers from which he removed the paper strips, thus allowing for identification of the sources consulted by Zweig.

Stefan Zweig probably used this small-sized notebook during his travels in the early 1930s. It contains sketches for several works, some as yet unidentified. The first pages contain notes for a novella, a designation to which Zweig appended that of “(Roman)” (“novel”). There are also several jottings of varying length for Marie Antoinette, all captioned by Zweig. Content and style indicate that these notes are from a very early stage of writing.

Numerous pages are blank, and at least one written page has been removed. On the stub that remained in the book the first letters of a word are legible – “An” for the heading “Antoinette”, or possibly “Au” for “Autografen” (“Autographs”), as is written elsewhere.

Like nearly all known notebooks used by Stefan Zweig, this one contains notes for several works, along with additional briefer jottings. The major part is taken up by sketches for an unpublished work of fiction. As was his wont at this stage of work, Stefan Zweig wrote the text proper on the right-hand side, then added insertions and extensive corrections on the left, often going through several revisions. To increase their visibility, these additions are frequently written at an oblique angle to the main text, sometimes employing different writing materials.

At some point, Stefan Zweig reversed the notebook for further use, thus inverting the orientation of the text. In this section, most of the pages are occupied by the later part of the second chapter of Marie Antoinette. This is probably the first version, written in pencil, as would reflect Zweig’s habit at this stage. The chapter’s later title, Geheimnis des Alkovens (“Secret of the Alcove”), has not yet appeared; in its place, Zweig simply set down “Schlagwort” (“catchword”). The ensuing notes consist of frequently incomplete or not yet perfectly shaped sentences. What is likely the chapter’s next stage of revision has also been preserved.

Although the text of this holograph ink draft is still far removed from its final shape and Stefan Zweig would subject it to several further revisions, the chapter now bears the caption “Geheimnis des Alcovens” (“Secret of the Alcove”) – a heading that would survive into the published first edition; merely the spelling of the word “Alcoven” was amended to “Alkoven”.

It is easy to discern that several words and parts of sentences were stricken out again shortly after being written. These changes were followed by a further revision which eliminated substantial passages of the text, still in the purple ink so distinctive of Zweig’s manuscripts, and ultimately – in red ink, for the sake of clarity – by a final revision of this stage of the manuscript.

In this chapter Stefan Zweig gives a candid account of the marital problems Marie Antoinette encountered with the French dauphin and later King Louis XVI Not least due to these passages, criticized as excessively risqué, Zweig decided to eliminate the chapter entirely in the course of his later revision, reworking parts of it into other sections of the book.

These leaves, written in ink, probably reflect the same stage of the manuscript’s revision as those containing the separate chapter Geheimnis des Alcovens. They comprise parts of several chapters, including Die neue Gesellschaft (“The New Society”) and Die Königin wird unbeliebt (“The Queen Becomes Unpopular”), as well as Die letzte Fahrt (“Drive to the Scaffold”).

Again, a few passages were stricken out or changed immediately after being penned. There was one further revision in the same purple ink: an additional revision in red ink did not occur here, perhaps not being found necessary. Several editing marks in blue pencil reference longer insertions written on separate sheets, now lost. The page marked in blue pencil as an addition to a quotation from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe belongs to the chapter Die Freunde fliehen (“Friends Desert”), the additional pages of which are lacking.

In common with most parts of the various stages of the Marie Antoinette working manuscripts, the typescript version that followed the holograph drafts is largely lost. One of the few surviving folios reveals that even this, supposedly a fair copy, was subjected to considerable further corrections before the passage was used – in revised form – for the chapter Die Eroberung von Paris (“Conquest of Paris”). An especially large paper size was used for typing, leaving a generous margin for corrections.

After the text was transferred to the next stage of revision, the sheet was used as waste paper to wrap a book or a stack of paper, as is indicated by remains of adhesive tape and by the crease marks particularly conspicuous on the reverse. The annotation “1924” on the back of the sheet probably refers to the contents of this package.

The extant proofs for Marie Antoinette begin in the chapter Geheimnis des Alkovens and include the following chapter Debüt in Versailles (“Debut at Versailles”) as well as parts of Der Kampf um ein Wort (“Fight for a Word”). Most of these galleys are from the book’s third correction, as evidenced by the imprint at the head of each sheet prepared by the printer, Poeschel & Trepte in Leipzig. Although the text was already set in type, Zweig continued not only to make small corrections, but also to strike out entire paragraphs. Indeed, due to the extensive redactions, one part of the chapter Der Kampf um ein Wort is present in an additional fourth galley, and even this contains further changes. Like the chapter numbers, the page headlines printed here (and occasionally even added by hand) were not carried over into the printed first edition.

Several contracts with foreign publishers concerning Marie Antoinette have survived, as they have for numerous other books by Stefan Zweig. Zweig always managed his own reprint and translation rights, and the necessary accounting and correspondence entailed a considerable workload. In an effort to streamline the administration of rights and the filing of documents, the contractual data and terms were copied to the so-called Hauptbuch (“main ledger”).

A significant portion of the work carried out in Stefan Zweig’s office was dedicated to the marketing of his books, long distributed internationally. This task he performed himself. Seeking to keep track of these various records, he set up the so-called Hauptbuch (“main ledger”) in 1932, entering into pre-printed double page forms the sold rights for each work and the contractual conditions negotiated with the publishers, translators, and film studios.

In not entirely consistent, but roughly chronological order, the large-sized volume individually lists monographs and in some cases even essays in collections, all referenced in a separate table of contents. Separate lines were pre-printed for the eleven foreign-language editions which were most likely to be published; another ten lines were reserved for editions in other languages. In several cases, this space proved only barely sufficient. The handwritten entries are mostly by Stefan Zweig himself, by his wife Friderike, and by his secretary, Anna Meingast.

When Stefan Zweig began to settle in England in 1934 and finally dissolved his Salzburg residence entirely in 1937, he insisted that the ledger remain with Anna Meingast. The final entry is on double page 77, regarding the anthology Begegnungen mit Menschen, Büchern, Städten (“Encounters with People, Books, Cities”), published in 1937. In anticipation, double page 75 included the book Ungeduld des Herzens (“Impatience of the Heart”) under its earlier working title Mord aus Mitleid (“Murder by Compassion”), as the French rights had been sold to the Paris publisher Grasset in December 1936, long before the manuscript was completed. The German original edition appeared only in 1939, when the Hauptbuch was no longer kept up to date. However, a copy of the ledger was prepared for further use during Zweig’s exile; this was maintained at his London office and is today in the possession of his heirs.