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METACLASSIC: SUPERB: RARE First edition (Orig. April 30,1995) Third Printing (August 1995): NEW: PRISTINE: Two-Volume hardcover set in EXCELLENT slipcase, NEW mylar-protected jackets w/ sharp NEW edges & corners, IMMACULATE smooth-cut text-block exteriors, NEW covers w/ black-linen wrapping spines & extending 1.25" onto front & back panels covered in black paper & w/ sharp NEW edges & corners, IMPECCABLE cream-white end-papers, NEW sewn bindings w/ tight signatures, PRISTINE interiors superbly printed in Caledonia on EXCELLENT unblemished archival paper * Volume I: 5.62" x 8.62" x 1.75", 0.92 kg, pp. 1-725 * Volume II: 5.62" x 8.62" x 1.75", 1.32 kg, pp. 726-1774 * The two-volumes complete in slipcase: 6.12" x 9.12" x 4.62", 2.54 kg, 1774 pp. * ABOUT THE WORK: This long-awaited translation, the first in English to provide the complete text, gives to its readers the greatest masterpiece in all 20th-century German literature, w/ Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past" & Joyce's "Ulysses" this is one of the three literary masterworks of modernism. Dazzlingly written, ferocious, suffused w/ high, ironic intelligence, it uses Viennese high society on the eve of World War I to chronicle the decay & collapse of the Old World & w/ utter prescience to explore all that would follow in our Age of Anxiety. At the heart of this astonishing novel is Ulrich: youngish, rich, an ex-soldier, a seducer, a scientist: "the man w/o qualities". Although he is eager for influence & worldly success, his self-awareness sets him apart from those around him. Unable to deceive himself that the jumble of attributes & values & behaviors that his world has bestowed upon him amounts to anything so innate as his "character" / "ego," he is effectively a man "w/o qualities," a brilliant detached observer of the racing society spinning around him. It is 1913 & from palace to salon all interlocking circles of court, aristocracy & high-bourgeoisie are gripped by a mission as high-flown as it is vague: to find a nationally appropriate way to celebrate the approaching 70th jubilee of the accession of Emperor Franz Josef. Half pulled (by his beautiful, high-minded, muddled cousin Diotima), half-pushed (by his stern old father the Judge), Ulrich finds himself appointed secretary general of this comically doomed enterprise. On one side, Austria's grand old aristocrats, its industrial magnates & military men, its secular priestesses of liberal culture, are all trying to salvage some illustrious idea out of the cultural chaos that is the Austro-Hungarian empire; on the other, sons & daughters of the more ordinary Viennese world are beginning to show signs of rebellion. As Ulrich maneuvers through this social labyrinth, he begins to feel the pull of what is deepest in him, gradually moving beyond the norms of erotic & political relations between men & women to the point where he seeks to dedicate his life to an exploration of a new science of passion & feelings. And his partner in this audacious enterprise will be his sister . . . This huge phenomenally ambitious novel, this "journey on the margins of the possible," was 20 years in the writing. Parts I to III appeared in Musil's lifetime (only the first was published in translation in the United States); the material presented here in "From the Posthumous Papers" existed only in highly developed sketch form in his papers at the time of his death. The first complete German edition of "The Man Without Qualities" finally appeared in 1951. Part satire, part visionary epic, part intellectual tour de force, "The Man Without Qualities" is a work of immeasurable importance. * SHIPPING: Mnemosyne carefully wraps & packages this handsome two-volume boxed set in a multi-walled custom-fitted carton for FREE shipment via USPS MEDIA MAIL within the United States & its territories. Due to the weight of this set, we ship all international orders via Mandatory USPS PRIORITY INTERNATIONAL AIRMAIL at below-cost rates quoted upon request.
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