This series transports readers to the tumultuous streets of pre-war Berlin, capturing its vibrant yet precarious atmosphere. It follows the experiences of an outsider navigating a world of eccentric characters and bohemian decadence. Through witty observations and sharp prose, the novels portray a society teetering on the brink of immense change and danger. These stories offer a compelling glimpse into a city and an era shadowed by an impending political storm.
After a chance encounter on a train the English teacher William Bradshaw starts a close friendship with the mildly sinister Arthur Norris. Norris is a man of contradictions; lavish but heavily in debt, excessively polite but sexually deviant. First published in 1933 Mr Norris Changes Trains piquantly evokes the atmosphere of Berlin during the rise of the Nazis.
Here, meine Damen und Herren, is Chrisopther Isherwood's brilliant farewell to a city which was not only buildings, streets and people, but was also a state of mind which will never come again.In linked short stories, he says goodbye to Sally Bowles, to Fraulein Schroeder, to pranksters, perverts, political manipulators; to the very, very guilty and to the dwindling band of innocents. It is goodbye to a Berlin wild, wicked, breathtaking, decadent beyond belief and already - in the years between the wars - welcoming death in through the door, though more with a wink than an whimper.~from the back cover
Includes Mr Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin , the inspiration for the stage and screen musical Cabaret . It is a haunting evocation of the gathering storm of the Nazi terror and a portrait of Bohemian Berlin - a city and a world on the very brink of ruin.