Description

This superb new translation of “Death in Venice” and six other stories by Thomas Mann is a tour de force, sure to establish itself as the definitive text for English-speaking readers. The seven stories in this collection represent the early part of Mann’s literary career, beginning with work he produced in 1896 at the age of 21, and culminating in his most celebrated novella, “Death in Venice” (1912). Although Mann continued working until the end of his life in 1955, he despaired of ever matching the quality of his early writing. In these stories, Mann began to grapple with themes that were to recur throughout his work. In the first piece, “Little Herr Friedemann,” as in “Death in Venice,” a character’s carefully structured way of life is suddenly and unexpectedly threatened by sexual passion. In “Gladius Dei,” puritanical intellect clashes with beauty. In “Tristan,” Mann presents an ironic and comical account of tension between an artist and bourgeois society. All seven of these stories are accomplished and memorable, but it is “Death in Venice” that truly forms the centerpiece of the collection. Themes that weave their way through many of the shorter stories come to a climax in this novella, out century’s most haunting, magnificent tale of art and self-destruction.