Born in Berlin in 1881 to a Prussian aristocratic family, Guy de Pourtalès studied literature at the Sorbonne, married a Frenchwoman, and became a French citizen before fighting on the French side during the First World War. After the war, Pourtalès developed tuberculosis, and while convalescing wrote a series of popular novels and biographies, forming rich and lasting contacts with luminaries in the French literary community, including Paul Valéry and André Gide, as well as pro-French German language writers and poets such as Zweig and Rainer Maria Rilke. Nietzsche in Italy was first published in 1929; it has never been out of print in France but has never been translated into English until now. Pourtalès finally succumbed to his illness in 1941.
Will Stone is a poet, essayist and literary translator. His translations for Pushkin Press include a series of titles by Stefan Zweig: Montaigne, Messages from a Lost World, Encounters and Destinies, and The Art of the City by Georg Simmel. His essays, reviews and poems have appeared in a range of publications including the TLS, the London Magazine, and the Spectator.