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Klara: a novel
In 1945, Vienna is a ruined city, broken and decrepit; stripped of its former elegance and haunted by the ghosts of Beethoven, Goethe and Mozart. A place where 'opera, being fantasy, is the only reality'.
Riddles abound and personal ambitions flourish in the blighted post-imperial heartland. The historic crown of Charles V has disappeared and Russian, British, American and French officers- already vying with each other for control of the city- try to find it. Shrouded in greater mystery is the disappearance of Klara von Acht, a Viennese heiress whose beauty casts a dangers and uncontrollable spell on all around her, and in particular on Kamo, a fugitive Georgian groom. And all around them the von Acht clan, vast and diverse, will blossom and decay while mystery, silence, and change dictate the course of history.
In an extraordinary reconstruction of Vienna in the 1940s, Hugh Thomas has brought to life the teeming post-war world of Austrians, Allies, and Russians, all watching each other and scheming. The 'smashed and dreary city of the Third Man' and the fading aristocratic dynasty of the von Achts are powerfully portrayed.
Riddles abound and personal ambitions flourish in the blighted post-imperial heartland. The historic crown of Charles V has disappeared and Russian, British, American and French officers- already vying with each other for control of the city- try to find it. Shrouded in greater mystery is the disappearance of Klara von Acht, a Viennese heiress whose beauty casts a dangers and uncontrollable spell on all around her, and in particular on Kamo, a fugitive Georgian groom. And all around them the von Acht clan, vast and diverse, will blossom and decay while mystery, silence, and change dictate the course of history.
In an extraordinary reconstruction of Vienna in the 1940s, Hugh Thomas has brought to life the teeming post-war world of Austrians, Allies, and Russians, all watching each other and scheming. The 'smashed and dreary city of the Third Man' and the fading aristocratic dynasty of the von Achts are powerfully portrayed.
347 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
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About the author
Hugh Thomas
179 books161 followersLibrarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Hugh Swynnerton Thomas, Baron Thomas of Swynnerton, was a British historian and Hispanist.
Thomas was educated at Sherborne School in Dorset before taking a BA in 1953 at Queens' College, Cambridge. He also studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. His 1961 book The Spanish Civil War won the Somerset Maugham Award for 1962. A significantly revised and enlarged third edition was published in 1977. Cuba, or the Pursuit of Freedom (1971) is a book of over 1,500 pages tracing the history of Cuba from Spanish colonial rule until the Cuban Revolution. Thomas spent 10 years researching the contents of this book.
Thomas was married to the former Vanessa Jebb, daughter of the first Acting United Nations Secretary-General Gladwyn Jebb.
From 1966 to 1975 Thomas was Professor of History at the University of Reading. He was Director of the Centre for Policy Studies in London from 1979 to 1991, as an ally of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. He became a life peer as Baron Thomas of Swynnerton, of Notting Hill in Greater London in letters patent dated 16 June 1981. He has written pro-European political works, as well as histories. He is also the author of three novels.
Thomas's The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1870 "begins with the first Portuguese slaving expeditions, before Columbus's voyage to the New World, and ends with the last gasp of the slave trade, long since made illegal elsewhere, in Cuba and Brazil, twenty-five years after the American Emancipation Proclamation," according to the summary on the book jacket.
Thomas should not be confused with two other historical writers: W. Hugh Thomas writes about Nazi Germany and Hugh M. Thomas is an American who writes on English history.
Hugh Swynnerton Thomas, Baron Thomas of Swynnerton, was a British historian and Hispanist.
Thomas was educated at Sherborne School in Dorset before taking a BA in 1953 at Queens' College, Cambridge. He also studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. His 1961 book The Spanish Civil War won the Somerset Maugham Award for 1962. A significantly revised and enlarged third edition was published in 1977. Cuba, or the Pursuit of Freedom (1971) is a book of over 1,500 pages tracing the history of Cuba from Spanish colonial rule until the Cuban Revolution. Thomas spent 10 years researching the contents of this book.
Thomas was married to the former Vanessa Jebb, daughter of the first Acting United Nations Secretary-General Gladwyn Jebb.
From 1966 to 1975 Thomas was Professor of History at the University of Reading. He was Director of the Centre for Policy Studies in London from 1979 to 1991, as an ally of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. He became a life peer as Baron Thomas of Swynnerton, of Notting Hill in Greater London in letters patent dated 16 June 1981. He has written pro-European political works, as well as histories. He is also the author of three novels.
Thomas's The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1870 "begins with the first Portuguese slaving expeditions, before Columbus's voyage to the New World, and ends with the last gasp of the slave trade, long since made illegal elsewhere, in Cuba and Brazil, twenty-five years after the American Emancipation Proclamation," according to the summary on the book jacket.
Thomas should not be confused with two other historical writers: W. Hugh Thomas writes about Nazi Germany and Hugh M. Thomas is an American who writes on English history.
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