Originally published: Great Britain: Piatkus, 2012.

A woman's version of Thoreau's Walden, this universal, timeless book explores the philosophical and psychological issues of self-identity--equally relevant to men and women today. Companion volume to the simultaneously released follow-up novel The Stations of Solitude.

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice New York Times Notable author María Gainza, who dazzled critics with Optic Nerve, returns with the captivating story of an auction house employee on the trail of an enigmatic master forger In the Buenos Aires art world, a master forger has achieved legendary status. Rumored to be a woman, she specializes in canvases by the painter Mariette Lydis, a portraitist of Argentinean high society. But who is this absurdly gifted creator of counterfeits? What motivates her? And what is her link to the community of artists who congregate, night after night, in a strange establishment called the Hotel Melancólico? On the trail of this mysterious forger is our narrator, an art critic and auction house employee through whose hands counterfeit works have passed. As she begins to take on the role of art-world detective, adopting her own methods of deception and manipulation, she warns us “not to proceed in expectation of names, numbers or dates . . . My techniques are those of the impressionist.” Driven by obsession and full of subtle surprise, Portrait of an Unknown Lady is a highly seductive and enveloping meditation on what we mean by "authenticity" in art, and a captivating exploration of the gap between what is lived and what is told.

In the late autumn of 1889, the body of an unknown woman appeared on the banks of the Seine River in Paris. It was taken to the city morgue behind Notre Dame and put on display for a month, according to protocol. The eerie beauty of the young woman's expression attracted crowds but no claimant, and so, before the body was dispatched, a mold was taken of the face, yielding a mask which was to become one of the most celebrated cult objets/curios of the 20th century. Set during the final days of the Paris expo of 1889, Brooks Hansen's The Unknown Woman of the Seine sets out to solve the mystery of who the woman was behind the mask. In charge of that investigation is a former Gendarme and recent prisoner of war just returned from Tonkin, China. Henri Brassard is on his way to Paris, determined to reclaim his place in La Force when he crosses paths with a mysterious and unnamed young maiden and her gypsy wagon. Detecting villainy, and bent on proving himself to his former superiors, Brassard tracks her into the city and observes from the shadows as, with evident but inscrutable purpose, she wends her way into the orbit of several savory and unsavory characters--an Artist, an Impresario, a Madame, a Countess, and one Disciple even--each of whom sees in her some opportunity, a chance for profit or redemption; any one of whom may therefore be responsible for her sudden and unexplained disappearance. On that account, Brassard's chase will lead him on a grand tour of the city's lushest and seamiest venues, from its highest spires down into its darkest, dankest catacombs and past a gallery of equally diverse crimes--the moral, the political, the maniacal. By the end, he will, in fact, learn the stunning truth of the unknown woman's true identity, her past and present, but not before unearthing the equally disturbing truth about himself, who he has been, and who he must become.

These four Stefan Zweig stories, newly translated by the award-winning Anthea Bell, are among his most celebrated and compelling work. The titular tale is a devastating depiction of unrequited love, which inspired a classic Hollywood film, directed by Max Ophüls and starring Joane Fontaine. Elsewhere in the collection, a young man mistakes the girl he loves for her sister, two erstwhile lovers meet after an age spent apart, and a married woman repays a debt of gratitude to her childhood sweetheart. Expertly paced, laced with the acutely accurate psychological detail and empathy that are Zweig's trademarks, this is a powerful addition to Pushkin's growing collection of his work.

'A typical day on the 4 to 12 shift, as I am at present, so that the sheer agony of it may be placed on record for me to look back on, perhaps one day in the far distant future when this period may be seen like a nightmare and be mercifully semi-observed in oblivion so that I shall remember only the glory of my position as the first and only woman on the watch and holding the most responsible position of any woman in the Hut.' October 12th 1942. When Elisa Segrave uncovered a cache of wartime diaries written by her mother, she had no idea that she would be brought face to face with a character utterly different from the troubled woman who had become so reliant on her. Now, on the pages before her, Segrave encountered Anne Hamilton-Grace, a young woman who had grown up in immense privilege and luxury but who leapt at the first opportunity to join the war effort. Through determination she excelled in the world of secret intelligence. Leaving the world of finishing school and hunt balls behind her, Anne’s journey took her to Hut 3 at Bletchley Park, to Bomber Command in Grantham and, finally, to a newly liberated Germany. In The Girl From Station X, Segrave opens the pages of her mother’s diaries to us and recreates her life both before and after the war. At once a vivid recreation of a dramatic era and a powerful portrait of a mother-daughter relationship, this is an original and affecting work about what it means to come to know someone through their writing; about how Anne unwittingly found a way to link her life with her daughter’s decades after they had given up trying to communicate.