A collection of essays that examines the artistic, social, political, and historical continuities and discontinuities in Viennese literature during the periods around 1900 and 2000. It shows that in both periods literature not only reflects societal conditions and political issues, but also serves to criticize them.

The figures treated range from Arthur Schnitzler, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Sigmund Freud, Theodor Herzl, Karl Kraus, Peter Altenberg, Franz Grillparzer, Joseph Roth, Bertha von Suttner, and Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach in the earlier fin de siecle to Elfriede Jelinek, Robert Schindel, Robert Menasse, Josef Haslinger, Ernst Jandl, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, and Marlene Streeruwitz in the current period. Ernst Grabovszki teaches at the University of Vienna. James Hardin is professor emeritus of German at the University of South Carolina.

Introduction - notes on literature in Vienna at the turn of the centuries, Ernst Grabovszki. Part 1 Literature: the written city - Vienna 1900 and 2000, Janet Stewart
notes from the counter-world - poetry in Vienna from Hugo von Hofmannsthal to Ernst Jandl, Rudiger Gorner
Austrian women and the public - women's writing at the turn of the centuries, Dagmar C.G. Lorenz
dreams of interpretation - psychoanalysis and the literature of Vienna, Thomas Paul Bonfiglio
Venice as mediator between province and Viennese metropolis themes in Rilke, Hofmannsthal, Gerhard Roth and Kolleritsch, John Pizere
critical observers of their times - Karl Kraus and Robert Menasse, Geoffrey C. Howes.