From the book cover:
"'They insisted that if the Master of their tongues desired any tales in the afternoon, he should first tell one himself. . . and when they were once more assembled, under the thick trees of the Mirsbell-garten before the sparkling fountain, he began his tale. . .'

The old princely city of Salzburg is the setting for the famous Festival where, one August in the 1930s, a group of visitors meet by chance. Amongst them are the Festival Director, small and stout; a Viennese conductor like a tasselled reed; a Scottish doctress, jolly and fresh-complexioned; an Archbishop grey as a gravestone; a Frenchwoman whose conversation dismayed the dull; and an English country gentleman who speaks of foxhounds in unconscious hexameters. These and others pass their free time in telling a rich and varied collection of idealistic and extravagant tales. In its scope, sheer fantasy, and range of characters, The Salzburg Tales, first published in 1934, is comparable to The Decameron and The Canterbury Tales."