Once a generation a psychic epidemic sweeps through the Jewish Town with lightning speed, gripping the souls of the living for some purpose...

This book is sheer past. Homeland and childhood – both of them long remote – form its background. – Today I would not have written it this...

Jan Neruda first unveiled his Prague Tales from the Little Quarter in 1878. These stories usher the reader back to the first half of the...

Popularly known as the Waltz Kings, Johann Strauss I and II shaped the musical fortunes of Austria for almost a century. The father brought...

In one of the most fascinating technological success stories in the world, Škoda combines the traditions of a hundred-year-old motoring...

Are halušky and škubánky a mys­tery to you? Have you ever heard of lívance and vdolky? Then you’re on the right track with this culinary...

A museum guide to the Goldmakers’ Lane featuring rare images, background information and a wealth of details.

According to legend, the...

The Golden Lane in Prague. In the past, its charming and colourful little houses were mainly inhabited by simple and poor people. For many...

Beethoven needs no introduction. There are already plenty of accounts of his life and work, and there will undoubtedly be no shortage of...

There are now fewer and fewer voices who can tell us about their childhoods in the 1940s and 1950s. Helmut Birkhan, long-serving medieval...

In December 1936, the Nazi state stripped Thomas Mann of his German citizenship. But this blow missed its mark – the Nobel laureate and most...

Prague is known as the Rome of the North, Kafka’s city, and the City of a Hundred Spires. This illustrated guide features excellent...

In this poetic diary, literary historian Peter Becher guides us through a Prague reality deeper than the touristy façade. This sensitive...

Summer 1990: A few weeks after the fall of the Iron Curtain two friends who knew each other as youthful friends from Budweiser meet in a...

The new Vitalis Minibooks are an ideal small gift at an unbeatable price, a colourful compliment in miniature format, not only useful for...

The new Vitalis Minibooks are an ideal small gift at an unbeatable price, a colourful compliment in miniature format, not only useful for...

The new Vitalis Minibooks are an ideal small gift at an unbeatable price, a colourful compliment in miniature format, not only useful for...

The new Vitalis Minibooks are an ideal small gift at an unbeatable price, a colourful compliment in miniature format, not only useful for...

Doctor, let me die...

Golden Lane in the wartime winter of 1916/17: Kafka retreats to the quiet of the little house at number 22 for a few...

This little booklet is a collection of the must-see sights of Prague: the lofty Castle, the famous Charles Bridge, the Old Town Square with...

An introduction to Vienna: an encounter with the medieval city, the residence of the Habsburg dynasty and one of Europe’s most important...

Baden – a Biedermeier spa town, nestling amid vine-covered hillsides – is home to the Old Town’s charming alleyways, immaculate baths and...

Austria in 1854: The young Bavarian Duchess Elisabeth takes the hand of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph in marriage in the festively...

Maria Theresa of Austria – a Baroque concerto grosso, a cantata of beauty, magnificence and imperial splendour. Juliana Weitlaner has been...

From Tafelspitz to Kaiserschmarren – the Imperial Court Kitchen was more than just a collection of fine delicacies, prepared by the best...

Franz Joseph defined his era and exemplified the old Austria. Installed on the throne as a young prince in 1848, he governed the Imperial...

“When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous insect. He lay on his...

The Letter to Father (1919) was never sent but is considered the key to Franz Kafka’s (1883-1924) literary work. This impressive testimony...

At the Prague Castle, in the Golden Lane, Franz Kafka (1883-1924) wrote these short stories, which were published in his lifetime under the...

“The story that I’m writing, which, I must say, is laid out into the endless … is called The Missing One (Der Verschollene) and takes place...

“The words that can be said about this book are merely tentative asides. A person must glean for himself line by line how the ominous...

A woman’s life in wartime. A young Bohemian girl, dressed as a boy, gets caught up in the turmoil of the Thirty Years’ War, loses her...

Wilhelm Hauff (1802-1827) had only just turned twenty-five when he wrote The Beggar of the Pont des Arts, a subtle and sensitive story that...

Doctor Faustus lived between approximately 1480 and 1539; to this day he remains the embodiment of humanity in striving for knowledge and...

American storyteller Edgar A. Poe’s (1809 Boston - 1849 Baltimore) detective stories have such impact and intensity that even George Orwell...

Born in Northern Bohemia, the German-Jewish author Dan Weinstein (born 1925) set his futuristic novel in a ruinous post-apocalyptic world....

The English adventurer and writer Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) only completed his first and most famous novel The Life and Strange Surprizing...

“Here is a praiseworthy and useful book, simple yet difficult, light yet dark: the lives, passions and sorrows of the saints, known as the...

Tales from Shakespeare is the abiding legacy of English poet Charles Lamb (1775-1834). This book sweeps us into Shakespeare’s realm and...

By the 19th century, the simple, humorous stories that Johann Peter Hebel (1760-1826) published over the years in the Rhenisch Fireside...

Born in 1944 near Pirmasens, the author based this documentary novel dealing with the entrapment, entanglement and eviction of an entire...

August 1944. Young Czech forced labourers are fleeing Vienna to set up a resistance group in Moravia. 21-year-old Božena works in a...

Diether Krywalski is an author and editor of literary studies and guides, and a contributor to the Lexikon der Weltliteratur. In recent...

“Give me upright men and capable officers” demanded Empress Maria Theresa of the commander in charge of the first “military hothouse” at its...

The 1848 musical novella The Poor Fiddler transports the reader to 19th-century Vienna. The Austrian dramatist Franz Grillparzer (1791-1872)...

This opulently illustrated book was the first to bring together accounts of all Kafka’s trips to Switzerland and Italy, on which his main...

The stories by blind author Oskar Baum (1883-1942) collected here offer the reader a unique take on the early 20th century: Baum’s...

In his memoir A Musician’s Blood (Musikantenblut) the apprentice locksmith and later court musician Wenzel Abert (1842-1915) describes his...

Franz Kafka was born in Prague; his writing has fascinated generations of readers all over the world and includes some of the most famous...

When we speak of the work of Franz Kafka (1883-1924), we instinctively think of his literary work. It is less well known that Kafka also...

Stroke by stroke, character by character, Paul Leppin’s prose sketches capture the image of Prague . Paul Leppin chats pensively about the...

This elegant edition of tales from Brno is based on a collection made by Leopold Masur, which appeared in 1934 in what was then...

But the book also tells of magnificent concert performances, accomplished pieces of theatre and especially of exhilarating friendships in...

This anthology of German tales from Moravia is devoted to a small Central European country that is still little known to this day. The...

The bearded Rübezahl lives in the Riesengebirge, the Giant Mountains with their snow-capped peaks; here, his moods and whimsies are...

Baden – a Biedermeier spa town, nestling amid vine-covered hillsides – is home to the Old Town’s charming alleyways, immaculate baths and...

Two professions, two callings: there is a long and eminent list of doctors who have also been authors – not least among them being Friedrich...

Oskar Wiener’s (b. 1873 in Prague, †1944 in Theresienstadt) Old-Prague Peep Show (1912) displayed images and figures of the city stemming...

This cultural study is the most exhaustive collection of Bohemian folk dances as recorded by Alfred Waldau from the mid-19th century...

Culture is big in Prague. There are huge cultural events, and smaller, more intimate occasions. Modern jazz is generally something of a...

Established in the late 18th century, Franzensbad (Františkovy Lázně) with its bubbling, healing spring, elegant buildings and extensive...

Prague is the second city after Salzburg to be inseparably linked with the name of Mozart. Here in the Bohemian capital he enjoyed his...

It would be hard to find another city in Europe so overflowing with stories, tales, and legends as the Old City of Prague. They tell of...

Strangely, one aspect of bygone Prague life seems to have escaped researchers in their many accounts: Prague was not only a university city...

The Czech poet Vítězslav Nezval (1900-1958) produced an extensive body of modernist work. As well as drama and translations, he left a...

These tales from Moravia’s hidden capital were published in 1892 and illustrated by José Hilber. This beautiful edition will delight any...

“The demons of the past are stirring in the unworldly old aristocrats of Prague Castle, and the old men are shocked by their own misspent,...

Kafka’s little meditations form something previously unknown in German literature; I know no model.

Hans Kohn in Selbstwehr (Dec. 20, 1912)

O Prague, O solemn city, O city of martyrs, musicians and pretty maids …, O Prague, how much of my freedom-loving soul you have taken from...

“Somebody must have defamed Josef K., for without having done anything wrong, he was arrested one morning. His landlady’s cook, who always...

‘Stick on!’ cries the dashing young man who wants to court the Princess, and soon everyone is stuck to his little magic wagon: the sooty...

Just like other European nations, the Czechs have a treasure trove of fairytales that has been lovingly handed down over the centuries. Some...

Just as in the days of the Emperor, people flock to the Czech Republic today to savour tasty local specialities, ranging from the fine...

Prague has been one of the most significant cities in European Judaism for many centuries. Alongside notable buildings such as the Old-New...

Prague is known as the Rome of the north, Kafka’s city, the city of a hundred spires. This illustrated volume, with excellent photography...

Exploring the coffee houses of Prague is a rewarding pastime. From the kavárna of old Prague to the jazz café of the music-loving Czechs n...

Prague is known as the Rome of the north, Kafka’s city, the city of a hundred spires. This illustrated volume, with excel­lent photography...

On a cold January night in 1756, a child is born in Salzburg’s Getreidegasse: his name is to become known across the world: Wolfgang Amadeus...

The sun, a great poet, wrote a lovely tale down on our earth with a golden pen.

Jiří Wolker

I could only live in three cities: Weimar, Karlsbad and Rome.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe

The Bohemian Forest: it is like a melancholy song that truly tugs on our heartstrings. Monotonous, unchanging, the wood and gloomy moorland...

Sacrifice to the Lares (1895), the collection of poems written by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) when he was only twenty years of age, is...

“I believe this book contains a few kernels which may grow into trees,” Rainer Maria Rilke revealed in a letter to a friend in 1900, shortly...

informative: This compact and detailed guide is packed with interesting and precise descriptions of all the important buildings and...

At the beginning of 1903, a pupil at the military academy in Wiener-Neustadt, Franz Xaver Kappus, sends a few poems to Rainer Maria Rilke,...

The Czech author Božena Němcová (1820-1862), born in Vienna, paints an entirely unsentimental portrait of the country habits and customs of...

“Franz Kafka was Prague and Prague was Franz Kafka”, Johannes Urzidil once wrote. And indeed, following the traces of Kafka’s life, your way...

According to Prague-German author Paul Leppin (1878-1945), the streets of his home city “led one astray and ill fortune lurked on the...

This fully revised edition of Kafka specialist Hartmut Binder’s stroll through Prague remains as useful as it is entertaining. It includes...

This lavish edition sweeps the reader into the lost world of old imperial Prague: it includes over a thousand historic photographs and...

Parentless children, stranded by the war — Swiss teacher Olga Fierz tells the moving story of a unique rescue mission in a topsy-turvy era....

A simple pitch burner moves to the forest with his family to avoid the plague. It is a worthwhile undertaking to compare the two versions of...

When Austria was still Bohemian ... that was “many years ago”, and now when Austrians and Czechs look at each other across the border,...

These stories, published in 1840, brought the young Adalbert Stifter literary acclaim. He had long seen himself as a painter and scarcely...

This latest work by Hartmut Binder represents nothing less than the first comprehensive biography of Gustav Meyrink to meet the needs of a...

Alphonse Mucha is world famous for his seductively beautiful panneaux and posters. As a decorative artist he shaped the appearance of a...

The most well-known Austrian animal story is familiar to generations of readers and has become a true classic, with many film and television...

Kafka was a subject of the Austrian empire, yet his relationship with its capital city is uncharted territory for scholars of his work. As a...

One of the most beautiful German-language Prague novels, Innocens by Ferdinand von Saar (1833–1906) is set on the Vyšehrad, a fortress...

A Water Prince living in the Moldau, talking animals, flying demons, packs of thieves and kind-hearted folk, intermingled with frequent...

“Kafka was Prague and Prague was Kafka. Never was Prague so perfect, so typical of herself as she was during Kafka’s lifetime, and never...

This biography follows in the footsteps of Styrian poet Dr Hans Kloepfer, whose poems such as Dahoam, Da Ruß and Spätherbst are firmly...

Once upon a time, every river bend, every mountain peak and every church tower had its own story to tell; adventurers and pitch-burners...

A hundred years ago, as the First World War came to an end after four brutal years, a lethal pandemic was gaining ground: the Spanish...

Peter Rosegger embodies the dreamlike ascent from simple Alpine farm lad to the celebrated prince among poets of his days. Millions were...

He is the Jugendstil master, the founder of the Vienna Secession; his paintings – which sell for record prices – and his lifestyle are the...

Egon Schiele had many faces: the exceptionally talented artistic genius; the sensitive creator of peaceful landscapes and the shameless...

In his masterpiece, the story High Forest, Adalbert Stifter describes the love of two sisters at the time of the Thirty Years’ War. At their...