Introducing the latest addition to the Slightly Foxed Editions list, No. 56:
Last Waltz in Vienna
Published 1 September
In February 1938, the grand Konzerthaus in Vienna was in full, glorious swing; bands were playing, there was dancing and singing and plenty of beer. It was the first ball ever attended by the 17-year-old Georg Klaar, and he stayed until the very last waltz. But on 11 March, lorries began thundering into the streets, filled with uniformed men waving swastikas and shouting ‘Death to Jews’. Austria was now betrayed and had been annexed by the German Third Reich.
Barely four years later, Georg Klaar had become George Clare and was serving in the British army, and his parents had been rounded up and taken to Auschwitz. Only with hindsight can George discern the complex reasons for his family’s destruction, and for the whole appalling waste of war. This is a profoundly moving, honest and compassionate memoir, remarkably devoid of self-pity, though not of anger.
Last Waltz in Vienna is published on 1 September but please do go ahead and place your order now. We’ll post out copies as soon as they roll off the printing presses and arrive here in the office later this month. And if you’re on a repeat order to receive each limited-edition memoir each quarter, your usual hand-numbered copy will be dispatched ahead of publication.
With best wishes, as ever, from the SF office staff
Jennie, Anna, Hattie, Jess & Iona