Thomas Bernhard - Collected Works (32 books)

* Thomas Bernhard - Collected Works (32 books)

THOMAS BERNHARD (1931–1989) was an Austrian novelist, playwright, poet and polemicist who is considered one of the most important German-language authors of the postwar era, winning the three most distinguished and coveted literary prizes awarded in Germany. He explored themes of death, isolation, obsession and illness in controversial literature that was pessimistic about the human condition and highly critical of post-war Austrian and European culture. He developed a distinctive prose style often featuring multiple perspectives on characters and events, idiosyncratic vocabulary and punctuation, and long monologues by protagonists on the verge of insanity.

Before establishing himself as a master of prose and drama, Bernhard began his literary apprenticeship as a lyric poet. His early creative years yielded visceral poetry collections such as ON EARTH AND IN HELL (1957), IN HORA MORTIS (1958), and UNDER THE IRON OF THE MOON (1958), which laid the thematic groundwork for the existential dread and morbidity that would characterize his subsequent masterpiece creations.

Bernhard’s breakthrough into fiction arrived with his dark debut novel, FROST (1963), immediately establishing his reputation for unrelenting prose experimentation. He followed this success with complex novels that charted mental collapse, including THE LIME WORKS (1970). WITTGENSTEIN’S NEPHEW (1982) functions simultaneously as an autobiographical novel, a scathing social satire, and an intimate elegiac memoir. His late-career output represents the peak of his prose achievements, marked by his famous "arts trilogy" consisting of THE LOSER (1983), WOODCUTTERS (1984), and OLD MASTERS (1985). Along with companion works like CONCRETE (1982) and YES (1978), his fictional output culminated in his longest and final monumental novel, EXTINCTION (1986), a sweeping, vitriolic clearing of accounts with familial and national histories.

His shorter fiction and novellas serve as distilled, potent concentrations of his signature philosophical obsessions and stylistic experiments. The posthumously compiled anthology THREE NOVELLAS (2003) gathers three early, dark explorations of human decay: "Amras" (1964), "Playing Watten" (1969), and "Walking" (1971), the latter of which establishes the unparagraphed, hyper-repetitive monologue structure that would define Bernhard's later masterpieces. THE VOICE IMITATOR (1978) is a collection of over one hundred darkly comic flash-fiction vignettes and parables. His late-career mastery of the short form culminates in the posthumous collection GOETHE DIES (2010), a slim volume anchored by an bitingly satirical title story in which the dying poet becomes obsessed with reading Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus before his demise.

Bernhard was an equally prolific and influential dramatist, drawing heavily from the Theater of the Absurd to expose bourgeois hypocrisy and cultural decay. Two anthologies illustrate his evolution from an absurdist provocateur to a fiercely sharp cultural satirist. HISTRIONICS: THREE PLAYS (1990) gathers together "A Party for Boris" (1970), "Ritter, Dene, Voss" (1984), and the titular "Histrionics" (1984), capturing Bernhard at his most radically experimental. The sweeping anthology SAVE YOURSELF IF YOU CAN: SIX PLAYS (2023) compiles key theatrical pieces spanning his entire career: The Ignoramus and the Madman" (1972), "The Celebrities" (1976), "Immanuel Kant" (1978), "The Goal Attained" (1981), "Simply Complicated" (1986), and "Elizabeth II" (1987). In both volumes, Bernhard treats the stage not as a place for realistic plot progression, but as an echo chamber where language serves as a weapon to puncture the hubris of the European bourgeoisie, intellectual elites, and state infrastructure.

His non-fiction achievement is anchored by a landmark five-volume autobiographical memoir charting his traumatic youth and brushes with death: THE CAUSE (1975), THE CELLAR (1976), BREATH (1977), IN THE COLD (1981), and A CHILD (1982), which are compiled together in English as GATHERING EVIDENCE (1985). Posthumously, his darkly comedic non-fiction account of accepting literary accolades, MY PRIZES (2009), shed further light on his combative, satirical relationship with the cultural institutions of his era.

Through this vast body of work across multiple genres, Bernhard cemented his position as the supreme Nestbeschmutzer (nest-fouler) of Austrian letters. His obsessive focus on perfectionists driven to madness or suicide created a singular literary architecture where language itself acts as a survival mechanism. By the time of his death in 1989, his radical vision of the world had transformed modern literature, leaving behind a legacy that continues to fascinate and discomfort readers globally.


The following books are in ePUB and/or PDF format as indicated:

== NOVELS ==

* The Cheap-Eaters [tr. Osers] (Quartet, 1990) – PDF^
* Concrete [tr. McLintock] (Knopf, 1984) – ePUB / PDF^
* Correction [tr. Wilkins] (Chicago, 1990) – ePUB / PDF^
* Cutting Timber: An Irritation [tr. Osers] (Quartet, 1988) – PDF^
* Extinction [tr. McLintock] (Knopf, 1995) – ePUB / PDF^
* Frost [tr. Hofmann] (Knopf, 2006) – ePUB
* Gargoyles [tr. Winston] (Knopf, 1970) – ePUB / PDF^
* The Lime Works [tr. Wilkins] (Chicago, 1986) – ePUB / PDF^
* The Loser [tr. Dawson] (Faber & Faber, 2013) – PDF^
* The Loser [tr. Dawson] (Knopf, 1991) – ePUB / PDF^
* Old Masters: A Comedy [tr. Osers] (Chicago, 1992) – ePUB / PDF^
* Old Masters: A Comedy [tr. Osers] (Penguin, 2010) – PDF^
* On the Mountain [tr. Stockman] (Quartet, 1993) – ePUB / PDF^
* Wittgenstein's Nephew [tr. McLintock] (Knopf, 1989) – ePUB / PDF^
* Wittgenstein's Nephew [tr. Osers] (Vintage, 1992) – PDF^
* Woodcutters [tr. McLintock] (Knopf, 1987) – ePUB / PDF^
* Yes [tr. Osers] (Quartet, 1992) – ePUB / PDF^

== SHORT FICTION ==

* Goethe Dies [tr. Reidel] (Seagull, 2016) – PDF^
* Three Novellas [tr. Jansen & Northcott] (Chicago, 2003) – ePUB / PDF^
* The Voice Imitator [tr. Northcott] (Chicago, 1997) – ePUB / PDF^
* Walking [tr. Northcott] (Chicago, 2015) – ePUB / PDF

== POETRY ==

* In Hora Mortis: Under the Iron of the Moon [tr. Reidel] (Princeton, 2006) – PDF^
* On Earth and in Hell: Early Poems [tr. Waugh] (Three Rooms, 2015) – ePUB

== PLAYS ==

* Histrionics: Three Plays [tr. Jansen & Northcott] (Chicago, 1990) – PDF
* Minetti: A Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man [tr. Cairns & Eyre] (Oberon, 2014) – PDF^
* Over All the Mountain Tops [tr. Mitchell] (Ariadne Press, 2004) – PDF^
* The President and Eve of Retirement: Plays and Other Writings [tr. Honegger] (PAJ, 1982) – PDF^
* Save Yourself If You Can: Six Plays [tr. Robertson] (Seagull, 2023) – ePUB

== NON-FICTION ==

* Gathering Evidence: A Memoir [tr. McLintock] (Knopf, 1985) – PDF^
* My Prizes: An Accounting [tr. Janeway] (Knopf, 2010) – ePUB / PDF^
* My Prizes: An Accounting [tr. Janeway] (Notting Hill, 2011) – PDF^

== BIOGRAPHY ==

* Thomas Bernhard: The Making of an Austrian [Gitta Honegger] (Yale, 2001) - PDF^

PDF^ courtesy of @Mohamed5438


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