Felix Salten: Man of Many Faces By Beverley Driver Eddy

During his lifetime Felix Salten (1869–1945) played a notable role in the cultural life of Vienna as social critic, essayist, playwright, novelist, and screenwriter. He founded the city’s first cabaret, wrote operetta librettos, and penned books about his travels to Palestine and to the United States. He was an authoritative voice on matters of the theater, served as active and honorary President of the Vienna P.E.N.-club, wrote a weekly column for Theodor Herzl’s Zionist newspaper, and was, in the words of his harshest critic Karl Kraus, “the best journalist in Vienna.”

This biographical study firmly positions the multi-faceted Salten within his Vienna context. Wherever possible, Salten speaks for himself in describing events of his own life and aspects of the bustling city around him, from the Habsburg court to the city slums, from the concert hall to the Prater folk’s park. It reexamines his controversial role in the circle of Young Vienna authors, his difficult friendships with Arthur Schnitzler and Richard Beer-Hofmann, his presumed authorship of Josefine Mutzenbacher, and his thoughts on animal communication as presented in works such as Bambi. A final chapter deals with the “Disneyfication” of Salten and the transformations of three of his novels into American family film fare.

Beverley Driver Eddy is Professor Emerita of German at Dickinson College, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.