A Confirmed Bachelor

by Arthur Schnitzler

Following the death of his sister, middle-aged Dr Graesler leaves his winter home in Lanzarote for a health resort in Germany, where he practised medicine for many years. There he meets the Schleheim family, and is particularly drawn to their daughter Sabine. But a simple, stilted courtship soon unravels a web of hushed-up suicide and illicit sexual liaisons. Arthur Schnitzler’s tumultuous psychodrama remains as startling now as it did on first publication.

Genres: Classics

138 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 17, 2025

About the author

Arthur Schnitzler was an Austrian author and dramatist.

The son of a prominent Hungarian-Jewish laryngologist Johann Schnitzler and Luise Markbreiter (a daughter of the Viennese doctor Philipp Markbreiter), was born in Vienna in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and began studying medicine at the local university in 1879. He received his doctorate of medicine in 1885 and worked at the Vienna's General Hospital, but ultimately abandoned medicine in favour of writing.

His works were often controversial, both for their frank description of sexuality (Sigmund Freud, in a letter to Schnitzler, confessed "I have gained the impression that you have learned through intuition — though actually as a result of sensitive introspection — everything that I have had to unearth by laborious work on other persons")[1] and for their strong stand against anti-Semitism, represented by works such as his play Professor Bernhardi and the novel Der Weg ins Freie. However, though Schnitzler was himself Jewish, Professor Bernhardi and Fräulein Else are among the few clearly-identified Jewish protagonists in his work.

Schnitzler was branded as a pornographer after the release of his play Reigen, in which ten pairs of characters are shown before and after the sexual act, leading and ending with a prostitute. The furore after this play was couched in the strongest anti-semitic terms;[2] his works would later be cited as "Jewish filth" by Adolf Hitler. Reigen was made into a French language film in 1950 by the German-born director Max Ophüls as La Ronde. The film achieved considerable success in the English-speaking world, with the result that Schnitzler's play is better known there under Ophüls' French title.

In the novella, Fräulein Else (1924), Schnitzler may be rebutting a contentious critique of the Jewish character by Otto Weininger (1903) by positioning the sexuality of the young female Jewish protagonist.[3] The story, a first-person stream of consciousness narrative by a young aristocratic woman, reveals a moral dilemma that ends in tragedy.
In response to an interviewer who asked Schnitzler what he thought about the critical view that his works all seemed to treat the same subjects, he replied, "I write of love and death. What other subjects are there?" Despite his seriousness of purpose, Schnitzler frequently approaches the bedroom farce in his plays (and had an affair with one of his actresses, Adele Sandrock). Professor Bernhardi, a play about a Jewish doctor who turns away a Catholic priest in order to spare a patient the realization that she is on the point of death, is his only major dramatic work without a sexual theme.
A member of the avant-garde group Young Vienna (Jung Wien), Schnitzler toyed with formal as well as social conventions. With his 1900 short story Lieutenant Gustl, he was the first to write German fiction in stream-of-consciousness narration. The story is an unflattering portrait of its protagonist and of the army's obsessive code of formal honour. It caused Schnitzler to be stripped of his commission as a reserve officer in the medical corps — something that should be seen against the rising tide of anti-semitism of the time.
He specialized in shorter works like novellas and one-act plays. And in his short stories like "The Green Tie" ("Die grüne Krawatte") he showed himself to be one of the early masters of microfiction. However he also wrote two full-length novels: Der Weg ins Freie about a talented but not very motivated young composer, a brilliant description of a segment of pre-World War I Viennese society; and the artistically less satisfactory Therese.
In addition to his plays and fiction, Schnitzler meticulously kept a diary from the age of 17 until two days before his death, of a brain hemorrhage in Vienna. The manuscript, which runs to almost 8,000 pages, is most notable for Schnitzler's cas

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

From BBC radio 4 Extra:
After his sister’s death, a middle-aged German doctor considers relinquishing his bachelor status, when he meets two very different women.

Written by Arthur Schnitzler and dramatised by Vanessa Rosenthal.

Emil Graesler .... Keith Drinkel
Sabine Schleheim .... Cathy Sara
Katharina Rebner ... Jo Rafferty
Frau Sommer ... Oona Beeson
Bohlinger ... Robert Lister
Frau Grumer ... Sunny Ormonde
Karl Schleheim .... Richard da Costa
Frau Schleheim: Marian Kemmer
Fanny Sommer ... Elizabeth Wofford

Director: Peter Leslie Wild.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2000.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000...

[Georgia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Archive #15

An engrossing story about a contemptible man!

What a nasty character Dr Graesler is! At first I found him pitiable, I thought his love for Sabine was touching. But as the novel went on, Schnitzler has him descend into a loathsome man.

I thought he was very well-written. None of his actions felt out of character. Looking back, the traits you initially pitied him for turn out to be the very things that drove him to act so appallingly. Schnitzler created a character motivated entirely by fear, cowardice, and self-doubt and showed where that can lead someone. Very well-deserving of the label 'psychodrama'.

The writing was pleasant and very readable. I sped through it, eager to know how it all turned out :-o

[Ananya M · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a complex character study of the titular confirmed bachelor. It was written in 1904, so expect on some level gender roles etc but so worth a read

[Max “Big Lad” McLoughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great read from my sickbed. Really absorbed me and took my mind off an illness so enormous in its magnitude I wonder if it will ever dissipate (man flu). Somewhat odd to read while ill, since the novella follows the escapades of a doctor in his efforts to cure illness and find a wife. My sense is that the choice of a doctor as the central protagonist in this narrative is interesting, symbolically, given the intimate relationship between eros and death. It is death which opens up the romantic aspect of his life, and only death can bring it to some form of resolution. While he abates death, he remains at the periphery of his romantic life.

Excited to read more Schnitzler. I was tipped off to him via Stanley Kubrick of all people, since Eye’s Wide Shut is loosely based on Schnitzler’s Dream Story. Hopefully I will get around to that one of these days. But A Confirmed Bachelor felt like a good introduction to Schnitzler: a fast-paced, well-written, interesting, and compelling narrative. The perfect length for a train journey, a flight, or an afternoon with the flu.

[Aisha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book to be well written, engaging, and have a pretty interesting main character. He's self-absorbed yet a lot of the book also covers his feelings of loneliness. It's an interesting mix and certainly makes an interesting character.

I believe that's what really made me keep reading this book. The complexities of Dr. Graesler's emotions and personal thoughts made this book extremely interesting. He's not necessarily likable but his feelings of loneliness are somewhat understandable and you can sympathize a bit. But in the next moment, you're reminded of why he's unlikable.

[Michelle Hyland · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book.

I feel that the protagonist was undeserving of the conclusion.

A thoroughly unlikable character.

A fantastic short read for translated fiction.

[Pascale · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant novella totally deriving of inclusion in Penguin Archive. Dr Graesler is a selfish, shilly-shallying doctor who splits his time between a small German spa in the summer and Lanzarote in the winter. Formerly a ship's surgeon, he has chosen mediocrity out of a lack of true commitment to his profession and his patients. The story starts as he leaves Lanzarote in the wake of his sister's totally unexpected suicide. Dr Graesler mourns the efficient housekeeper more than the sibling. Once back in Germany, he is captivated by an unusual young woman who is the daughter of a retired and embittered opera singer. Sabine worked as a nurse for a time and was even engaged to a doctor who died young. She encourages Dr Graesler to buy a run-down sanatorium on the edge of town and hire her as matron. She even takes the daring step of offering herself as his wife, in spite of the 20 year age difference between them. Dr Graesler is so scared of Sabine that he beats a hasty retreat to his home town on some flimsy pretext of thinking things over. No sooner is he back home that he starts flirting with Katharina, a cheerful working-class girl who offers herself on their second date. Incapable of making up his own mind, Dr Graesler spends his time writing inconclusive letters to Sabine while keeping Katharina happy with clothes and trinkets fished out of his dead sister's trunks. Meanwhile the daughter of one of Dr Graesler's neighbors falls ill with scarlet fever. Reluctantly at first, Dr Graesler accepts to look after the little girl, and starts to fancy her widowed mother, who's rumored to be a woman of easy virtue. Katharina catches scarlet fever off the girl and dies. Not one to wallow in grief, Dr Graesler packs his back, hoping to secure Sabine's hand as well as the sanatorium, but he is too late on both counts. Sabine rejects him with well-hidden scorn, and he finds out that the owner of the sanatorium has decided to renovate it himself. Once again, Dr Graesler doesn't miss a beat and hurries back to his hometown where he proposes to the widow, who eagerly accepts him. The couple is last seen disembarking in Lanzarote. Dr Graesler is a great study in callousness and I'm surprised I never heard of it before.

[Jared Oliver · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so amazing, and really it took me about two days to read.
This novella follows a heartbroken man (from the death of his sister) as he escapes for the summer to a health resort. He there finds a girl whom he begins to fall in love with; who can somewhat fill the hole in his heart. After some time together she writes him a proposition and in his fear, flees to his hometown to “think it over”. There, circumstances lead to his further exploration and the result of that, on top of the original predicament, is truly further heartbreaking. This back and forth and the many connections really intrigued me and kept me pushing forward in chapters and in progress. I truly enjoyed every part of this story and the resolution was one I can honestly say I was very intent with.
I highly recommend this quick read, and it will be one I will revisit often.

[Oliver Nash · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engrossing read. I started the novel feeling a great deal of sympathy for Dr. Graesler, but began to loathe him by the end of it. Someone needs to talk to this man about the questionable choices he makes! He’s a very human character, whose thoughts were at times uncomfortable to read, but were very recognisable emotions.

[Jeni Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Charming novella, of a particular time and sensibility. Didn't blow me away, and I found the main character a bit self-obsessed and lacking in self-awareness. Perhaps that is the reason for his confirmed bachelorhood.

[svlouv · Rating 3 out of 5]

not worthy of his ending

[Inam · Rating 4 out of 5]

most bro story ever

[lostoyster: chili · Rating 3 out of 5]

case study in hapless, unprincipled, annoying males