!!!Altenberg, Peter eigentlich Richard Engländer

b. Vienna, March 9, 1859, 
d. Vienna, Jan. 8, 1919; writer, a master in the art of savoir-vivre. 
A Viennese merchant's son, he was given a typical upper middle class 
education. After abandoning successively his studies of law and 
medicine as well as his bookseller's apprenticeship he was diagnosed 
as having a "hypersensitive nervous system" that rendered him unable 
to work. His pseudonym "Altenberg" came from a village of the same 
name on the River Danube. Afflicted by constant depression and nervous 
breakdowns, A. was one of the most important authors of the group  
Jung-Wien ("Young Vienna") until his death. His contradictory 
personality manifested itself in a healthy, vegetarian diet 
accompanied by the excessive intake of alcohol and pills. The contents 
and form of his prose are fully in line with the emotions and inner 
unrest of the fin-de-siècle bohemian. Karl  Kraus strongly 
supported A. and his work.

!Works
Wie ich es sehe, 1896; Ashantee, 1897; Was der Tag mir 
zutraegt, 1900; Prodromos, 1905; Maerchen des Lebens, 1908; Neues 
Altes, 1911; Vita ipsa, 1918. - Edition: Gesammelte Werke, 5 vols. 
(only 2 published), ed. by W. Schweiger, 1987.

!Literature
H. C. Kosler (ed.), P. A., Leben und Werk in Texten und 
Bildern, 1981; A. Barker, Telegrammstil der Seele. P. A. - eine 
Biographie, 1998.



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