The house of Wittgenstein, a family at war - Alexander Waugh

The Wittgenstein family of Vienna was one of the most gifted yet star-crossed clans of the twentieth century. Heirs to a vast steel fortune, the children faced parental opposition to their musical and literary ambitions. Two brothers would commit suicide as a result; one, Ludwig, would abandon engineering to become the century's most famous and enigmatic philosopher; and the fourth, Paul, would surmount the loss of a hand in the Great War to become the world's greatest left-handed pianist.

Alexander Waugh tells this saga of baroque family unhappiness and perseverance against incredible odds with a novelistic richness to rival Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks

hardcover