Malevolent Muse Hilmes Oliver

Of all the colorful figures on the twentieth-century European cultural scene, hardly anyone has provoked more polarity than Alma Schindler Mahler Gropius Werfel (1879 - 1964), mistress to a long succession of brilliant men and wife of three of the best known: composer Gustav Mahler, architect Walter Gropius and writer Franz Werfel. Her detractors found her a self-aggrandizing social climber and an alcoholic, bigoted, vengeful harlot - as one contemporary put it, "a cross between a grande dame and a cesspool." So who was she really? To her admirers Alma was a self-sacrificing socialite who inspired many great artists.

Alma Mahler was one of the twentieth century's rare originals, worthy of her immortalization in song. When historian Oliver Hilmes discovered a treasure-trove of unpublished material, much of it in Alma's own words, he used it as the basis for his first biography, setting the record straight while evoking the atmosphere of intellectual life in Europe and then in emigre communities on both coasts of the United States after the Nazi takeover of their home territories.First published in German in 2004, the book was hailed as a rare combination of meticulously researched scholarship and entertaining writing, making it a runaway bestseller and advancing Oliver Hilmes to his position as a household name in contemporary literature. Oliver Hilmes has provided us with an even-handed yet tantalizingly detailed account of her life, bringing Alma's singular story to a whole new audience.