1917, Arthur Schnitzler, Frau Berta Garlan, Fischer Verlag Berlin,

Arthur Schnitzler (1862 – 1931) was an Austrian author and dramatist. He is considered one of the most significant representatives of the Viennese Modernism. Schnitzler’s works, which include psychological dramas and narratives, dissected turn-of-the-century Viennese bourgeois life, making him a sharp and stylistically conscious chronicler of Viennese society around 1900.

His novel Frau Bertha Garlan (Mrs. Berta Garlan since the 1912 edition) was written in 1900 and appeared in the literary magazine Neue Deutsche Rundschau in Berlin in 1901. A few weeks later, S. Fischer, publisher of the magazine, published the text as a book. The autobiographical reference to Schnitzler’s re-encounter with his childhood sweetheart Franziska Reich (1862–1930)  has been pointed out several times. On May 22, 1899, the now widowed Franziska Lawner, who lived in Bielsko-Biała, met the author again at the Secession for the first time. The brief affair that took place over the next few days was more significant for her than for him, as can be seen from her letters and his diary.