In his reflections on artistic creation, presented as a London lecture in December 1938, Stefan Zweig poses fundamental questions about the conditions of art: What constitutes a process of artistic creation? How do literature, painting and music come about? Where is the distinction between popular street music and a fugue by Bach? He makes no mention of the fact that both he and his art had been subject to Nazi abuse and persecution since 1933.

Zweig’s books had been destroyed in the burning of books in Salzburg in 1933 and 1938. After the annexation of Austria had made him stateless, he lived in exile in London and applied for British papers. In 1939 he travelled to the USA together with his fiancée Lotte Altmann for a lecture tour and performances of his play Jeremiah. Among others, in New York he met his publisher Ben Huebsch as well as Albert Einstein, Salvador Dali, Klaus Mann and Ernst Toller.

During January and February 1939 he made alternate presentations of his lectures, Das Geheimnis des künstlerischen Schaffens and Geschichtsschreibung von morgen, in more than fifteen US-American cities. For the most part, he gave the lectures in an English version that has survived together with an initial German version and various different manuscripts.

publications of the lecture:
Zeit und Welt. Gesammelte Aufsätze und Vorträge 1904–1940. (u. a. Das Geheimnis des künstlerischen Schaffens 1938 London), Stockholm: Bermann-Fischer 1943
Das Geheimnis des künstlerischen Schaffens, Frankfurt/M.: S. Fischer 1984
Das Geheimnis des künstlerischen Schaffens. Hg. und mit Nachwort versehen von Knut Beck, Ungekürzte Ausgabe, Frankfurt/M.: S. Fischer 1993