"He again had the sense that all this order, balance and security in his life were really an illusion and a lie".... "Everything seemed to be slipping from his grasp; everything was becoming increasingly unreal, even his home, his wife, his child, his profession, his very identity."
Originally published in 1926, Rhapsody: A Dream Novel is a psychological novella written by Arthur Schnitzler. Following Doctor Fridolin and his wife, Albertine, Rhapsody: A Dream Novel sees the couple embark on a two-day odyssey in the erotic underworld.
One night a successful doctor, Fridolin, and his beautiful wife, Albertine, attend a masked masquerade ball. Seeing naked men and women and propositioned for sex, the lust-filled couple are inspired to make love to one another; and Albertinein the heat of passionadmits a sexual fantasy she had the previous summer. Taken slightly back, Fridolin admits his own fantasies to his wife and begins to question his place in their marriage, the strength of their love and the middle class life he has found himself living. Filled with erotic fun, secrets, and sensuality, Rhapsody: A Dream Novel is a psychoanalytic novella that explores sexual guilt, fantasy, love and death.
This edition of Rhapsody: A Dream Novel is a classic of erotic literature reimagined for modern readers.
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With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.
About the Author :
Arthur Schnitzler
(1862-1931) was an Austrian author and dramatist. Born in the capital of the Austrian Empire, Schnitzler descended from two Jewish families, with his mother being Luise Markbreiter and his father being the well-renowned Johann Schnitzler. He would enter the practice of medicine like his father and maternal grandfather before him and begin work at Vienna's General Hospital after completing his doctorate at the University of Vienna. This career path, however, would be short-lived as over the next ten years, Schnitzler's interest in the medical field would dwindle and he would set out to make a career for himself as a writer. Beginning with his first play Anatol (1893), Schnitzler would go on to publish over a dozen works with the most notable being the controversial play Reigen (1897), the sensual novella Rhapsody: A Dream Novel (1926), and the socio-political novel The Road into the Open (1908), and become known for his frank descriptions of sexuality, commitment to writing "of love and death," and strong stance against antisemitism.
