Alma Mahler: or the Art of Being Loved
Biography Music History Women's History Viennese Modernism Art & Muse Studies 20th-Century European History
Alma Mahler: or the Art of Being Loved is the brisk, hardcover Oxford University Press biography that finally gives English-language readers a front-row seat to the most talked-about muse of fin-de-siècle Vienna. In only 169 pages Françoise Giroud traces how a gifted composer-pianist rewrote the rules of love, marrying (and inspiring) Gustav Mahler, Walter Gropius, and Franz Werfel while collecting admirers from Kokoschka to Klimt. The result is a compact, search-friendly portrait that doubles as a crash-course in the birth of modernism—perfect for readers who want the sweep of a thick biography without the shelf-bending bulk.
What makes this 1991 first-edition hardcover so collectible is its combination of scarcity and condition: it still carries the original dust jacket and, at just 374 g, feels more like a gift book than an academic tome. The lightly inscribed gift note on the cover page and two discreet pen marks show it was read once with care—no dog-eared corners, no cracked spine—so you inherit a volume that looks fresh while retaining the authentic patina of a reader’s copy. For collectors of women’s history, Vienna 1900 studies, or composer biographies, this is the elusive Oxford printing that rarely surfaces in the second-hand market.
Beyond rarity, Giroud’s narrative style is the real draw: cinematic chapters move from Alma’s bourgeois upbringing to the scandalous affairs that shocked even Freud’s circle, yet the book never sinks into gossip. Young-adult and adult newcomers appreciate the 215 mm height—easy to hold in one hand—while scholars value the meticulous sourcing that Oxford demanded. Whether you’re shopping for a graduation gift, a birthday surprise for a Mahler devotee, or a centerpiece for your own shelf of muses and makers, this gracefully used hardcover delivers story, status, and enduring resale value in one elegant package.
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