A tale of genius in which Thomas Mann explores the artist's relation to life.First published in 1912, Death in Venice tells how Gustave von Aschenbach, a writer utterly absorbed in his work, arrives in Venice as the result of a 'youthfully ardent thirst for distant scenes', and meets a young boy by whose beauty he becomes obsessed. His pitiful pursuit of the object of his affection and its inevitable and pathetic climax are told here with the particular skill the a...

Death in Venice, novella by Thomas Mann, published in German as Der Tod in Venedig in 1912. A symbol-laden story of aestheticism and decadence, Mann’s best-known novella exemplifies the author’s regard for Sigmund Freud’s writings on the unconscious. Gustav von Aschenbach is a revered author whose work is known for its discipline and formal perfection.

"John E. Woods is revising our impression of Thomas Mann, masterpiece by masterpiece." -The New Yorker"Doctor Faustus is Mann's deepest artistic gesture. . . . Finely translated by John E. Woods." -The New RepublicThomas Mann's last great novel, first published in 1947 and now newly rendered into English by acclaimed translator John E. Woods, is a modern reworking of the Faust legend, in which Germany sells its soul to the Devil. Mann's protagonis...

A Major Literary Event: a brilliant new translation of Thomas Mann's first great novel, one of the two for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1929.Buddenbrooks, first published in Germany in 1900, when Mann was only twenty-five, has become a classic of modem literature -- the story of four generations of a wealthy bourgeois family in northern Germany. With consummate skill, Mann draws a rounded picture of middle-class life: births and christenings; marriages, div...

'impossible here, absurd, depraved, ludicrous and yet sacred, still honourable, even here: "I love you!"' This volume contains a generous selection of the short fiction Thomas Mann published in the years 1897 to 1912, after which he turned to larger-scale projects. The acknowledged classic among the early shorter fiction is the novella Death in Venice, in which Mann develops a lyrical style and a range of mythological allusions, through the forbidden love of a mid...

"The Magic Mountain is simply one of the greatest novels ever written." - The GuardianWith this dizzyingly rich novel of ideas, Thomas Mann rose to the front ranks of the great modern novelists, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929. The Magic Mountain takes place in an exclusive tuberculosis sanatorium in the Swiss Alps - a community devoted to sickness that serves as a fictional microcosm for Europe in the days before the First...

**A "brilliant . . . perfectly nuanced translation" (The Boston Globe) of Thomas Mann's greatest short worksA Penguin Classic**Featuring his world-famous masterpiece, "Death in Venice," this collection of Nobel laureate Thomas Mann's stories and novellas reveals his artistic evolution. In a widely acclaimed translation that restores the controversial passages that were censored from the original English version, "Death in Venice" tells about a ruinous quest for lov...

'Why must I feel that almost all--no, all--of the devices and conventions used by art are today only fit for parody?' Adrian Leverkühn is a composer who, at terrible personal cost, makes the breakthrough from traditional art to extreme modernism and success. Creative and brilliant, he will stop at nothing to achieve greatness. Thomas Mann wrote Doctor Faustus (1947) in American exile during and just after the Second World War. A prominent and long-standing defende...

An atmospheric story of obsession and inner conflict set in the oppressive heat of a Venetian summer, Death in Venice is considered to be one of Thomas Mann’s greatest works.Seized by the urge to travel, revered German writer Gustav von Aschenbach books a stay in a hotel on Venice’s Lido. There, in the oppressive summer heat, he becomes intoxicated by the beauty of a young Polish boy who is on holiday with his family. As Aschenbach's struggle between disci...

'All his powers were in decline; the only thing growing stronger in him was the conviction that all this could not last much longer, that his demise was imminent.' The Buddenbrooks (1900) was Thomas Mann's first major success. It draws on his own family history and on his vivid memories of growing up in the commercial town of Lübeck in North Germany. The narrative traces the decline of a wealthy, established merchant family, from their height during the last decad...

A visit to a Swiss sanatorium leads to seven years spent outside ordinary time.As Seen on BBC Between the CoversHans Castorp arrives at a tuberculosis sanatorium in the Swiss Alps to visit his cousin, intending to stay for just three weeks. But illness, routine and the strange atmosphere of the mountain draw him in.Life at the Berghof is measured by meals, temperatures, rest cures and conversations. Around Hans gather doctors, patients and intellect...

The world-famous masterpiece about a writer's obsessive pursuit of forbidden love by a Nobel Prize laureate.Translation by Michael Henry HeimPublished on the eve of World War I, a decade after Buddenbrooks had established Thomas Mann as a literary celebrity, Death in Venice tells the story of Gustave von Aschenbach, a successful but aging writer who follows his wanderlust to Venice in search of spiritual fulfillment that instead leads to h...