This study is the first comprehensive appreciation of the largely underrated Austrian author Ferdinand von Saar (1833-1906). The textual analysis concentrates on his short stories, where he essays a discursive panorama of the late stages of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Despite his idealistic desire for harmony he is increasingly overtaken by destructive forces. Identity and traditional gender roles threaten to collapse, a development reflected by the topographic localization of the texts in 19th century Vienna. Saar is one of the precursors of modernity around the turn of the century. But the ambivalence in his texts also points to the anxiety triggered in the individual by this process.