title: Malevolent Muse: The Life of Alma Mahler
author: Oliver Hilmes
description: "Clearly Alma Schindler Mahler Gropius Werfel inspired passionate antipathies among her many acquaintances. She also inspired passionate admiration in the course of a long life that spanned the collapse of Hapsburg Austria and two world wars. Charming, privileged, ambitious and calculating, she was one of the most remarkable women of the 20th century, one whose magnetic aura touched an entire generation of creative artists. . . . Even-handed, compulsively readable. . . . [Malevolent Muse is]&#160;the most exhaustively documented study of Alma Mahler to appear to date. . . . [It]&#160;makes an absorbing psychobiography, a must-read for Mahlerians."&#8212;John von Rhein, <i><b>Chicago Tribune</b></i><br><br>"Oliver Hilmes&#8217;s&#160;Malevolent Muse: The Life of Alma Mahler&#160;is a stylishly dispiriting biography of the woman who had early ambitions to become a composer but who won fame for a remarkable series of marriages and affairs&#8212;to and with, variously, Gustav Mahler, Oskar Kokoschka, Walter Gropius, and Franz Werfel. Hilmes . . . emphasizes the extent of Mahler-Werfel&#8217;s anti-Semitism, which remained disturbingly strong even during the Second World War: in exile in Los Angeles, she told Werfel that the Nazis had done &#8220;a great many praiseworthy things.&#8221;&#8221; &#8212;Alex Ross, <i><b>New Yorker</b></i><br><br> &#8220;Of all the writers who have attempted to write Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel's biography, Oliver Hilmes is by far the best informed. . . . Alma's incredible life, the contrasting aspects of her powerful nature, her burning passions, the fierce jealousies and dislikes she aroused in others, make for a fascinating tale that is very well told by Hilmes, who scrutinizes her character and tells her story with a rare mixture of lucidity and objectivity.&#8221;&#8212;Henry-Louis de la Grange, biographer of Gustav Mahler<br><br>"Those seeking gossip will not be disappointed. But neither will those seeking to better understand the much-maligned subject and her relationships with the men in her life. . . .&#160;Hilmes is especially successful at situating his subject in the context of European intellectual life before WW II, and within the various &#233;migr&#233; communities in the US following the Nazi takeover. Hilmes&#8217;s list of sources is extensive, and the volume is well documented and presents a great deal of unpublished material, much of it in Alma&#8217;s own words. . . . Recommended.&#8221; &#8212;<i><b>Choice</b></i>
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  ![](images/00004.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Deborah Hale
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The Last Champion
  
  ![](images/00001.jpg)
  
  TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON  
  AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG  
  STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID  
  PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  This book is dedicated with admiration and love  
  to my fellow Harlequin Historical authors,  
  “The Hussies,” who are the unswerving champions  
  of my Muse, my mental health and my joy in life.  
  Thank you for always being there!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Contents
  
  
  [Chapter One](index_split_005.html#filepos5174)
  
  
  [Chapter Two](index_split_006.html#filepos39019)
  
  
  [Chapter Three](index_split_007.html#filepos68243)
  
  
  [Chapter Four](index_split_008.html#filepos95942)
  
  
  [Chapter Five](index_split_009.html#filepos127038)
  
  
  [Chapter Six](index_split_010.html#filepos154971)
  
  
  [Chapter Seven](index_split_011.html#filepos185394)
  
  
  [Chapter Eight](index_split_012.html#filepos212878)
  
  
  [Chapter Nine](index_split_013.html#filepos242638)
  
  
  [Cha