Peter Altenberg

Peter Altenberg (real name Richard Engländer, 1859–1919) was an Austrian writer associated with Viennese modernism. Born in Vienna into a prosperous Jewish merchant family, he abandoned studies in medicine and law as well as an apprenticeship in bookselling. He became known chiefly for short, aphoristic prose sketches and is regarded as an important coffeehouse writer of fin-de-siècle Vienna. His first book, “Wie ich es sehe” (“As I See It”), was published in 1896. Altenberg died in Vienna in 1919.