Most Popular Books by Thomas Mann

A monumental work of erudition and irony, sexual tension and intellectual ferment, The Magic Mountain is an enduring classic • Acclaimed translator John E. Woods has given us the definitive English version of Mann’s masterpiece, presented here in a stunning hardcover edition. With this dizzyingly rich novel of ideas, Thomas Mann rose to the front ranks of the great modern novelists, winning the Nobel Prize in 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 World War. To this hermetic and otherworldly realm comes Hans Castorp, an “ordinary young man” who arrives for a short visit and ends up staying for seven years, during which he succumbs both to the lure of eros and to the intoxication of ideas. Everyman''s Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Contemporary Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author''s life and times.

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, divorces, and deaths; successes and failures. These commonplace occurrences, intrinsically the same, vary slightly as they recur in each succeeding generation. Yet as the Buddenbrooks family eventually succumbs to the seductions of modernity -- seductions that are at variance with its own traditions -- its downfall becomes certain. In immensity of scope, richness of detail, and fullness of humanity, Buddenbrooks surpasses all other modem family chronicles; it has, indeed, proved a model for most of them. Judged as the greatest of Mann''s novels by some critics, it is ranked as among the greatest by all. Thomas Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1929.

The Holy Sinner explores a subject that fascinated Thomas Mann to the end of his life - the origins of evil and evil''s connection with magic. Here Mann uses a medieval legend about "the exceeding mercy of God and the birth of the blessed Pope Gregory" - illuminating the notion of original sin and transcendence of evil.

The ironic satire of a decaying German duchy and its rejuvenation by the appearance of an independent-minded American woman. Peopled with a range of characters from aristocrat to mad woman, this novel is a microcosm of Europe before the Great War. The book''s driving force is the development of a love between the young Prince, hidebound by tradition, and the exotic, beautiful Imma. Written by Noble Prize winning author Thomas Mann, his careful depiction of a decaying society rejuvenated by modern forces illustrates in fable what he regarded as a universal truth - that ripeness and death are a necessary condition of rebirth.

A classic, controversial book exploring German culture and identity by the author of Death in Venice and The Magic Mountain, now back in print. When the Great War broke out in August 1914, Thomas Mann, like so many people on both sides of the conflict, was exhilarated. Finally, the era of decadence that he had anatomized in Death in Venice had come to an end; finally, there was a cause worth fighting and even dying for, or, at least when it came to Mann himself, writing about. Mann immediately picked up his pen to compose a paean to the German cause. Soon after, his elder brother and lifelong rival, the novelist Heinrich Mann, responded with a no less determined denunciation. Thomas took it as an unforgivable stab in the back. The bitter dispute between the brothers would swell into the strange, tortured, brilliant, sometimes perverse literary performance that is Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man, a book that Mann worked on and added to throughout the war and that bears an intimate relation to his postwar masterpiece The Magic Mountain. Wild and ungainly though Mann’s reflections can be, they nonetheless constitute, as Mark Lilla demonstrates in a new introduction, a key meditation on the freedom of the artist and the distance between literature and politics. The NYRB Classics edition includes two additional essays by Mann: “Thoughts in Wartime” (1914), translated by Mark Lilla and Cosima Mattner; and “On the German Republic” (1922), translated by Lawrence Rainey.

"Mann''s pivotal role during the Nazi period as perhaps the most eloquent spokesman for the ''other Germany'' that lived in exile means that anyone studying the history of our century must begin with him. . . . These letters are literary and cultural documents that have few equals in our age."--James K. Lyon, University of California, San Diego "Mann''s pivotal role during the Nazi period as perhaps the most eloquent spokesman for the ''other Germany'' that lived in exile means that anyone studying the history of our century must begin with him. . . . These letters are literary and cultural documents that have few equals in our age."--James K. Lyon, University of California, San Diego

One of the most famous literary works of the 20th century, the novella “Death in Venice” embodies themes that preoccupied Thomas Mann (1875–1955) in much of his work; the duality of art and life, the presence of death and disintegration in the midst of existence, the connection between love and suffering, and the conflict between the artist and his inner self. Mann’s handling of these concerns in this story of a middle-aged German writer, torn by his passion for a Polish youth met on holiday in Venice, resulted in a work of great psychological intensity and tragic power.

"Brilliant…a little masterpiece."—Chicago Sun-Times "Beautiful…one of the best short novels he has written."—New York Times Book Review "Can rank with the best of Mann''s writing."—The Boston Globe "Magnificent…one of the greatest bits of writing which one of the world''s greatest writers has ever given us."—Chicago Herald-American "Brilliant…one of those splendid novelettes which in this reviewer''s opinion represent the very essence of Mr. Mann''s literary art."—Saturday Review of Literature "Thomas Mann wrote this engaging novella in a few weeks in 1943. (The new translation by Marion Faber and Stephen Lehmann, which is brisk and direct, is a welcome replacement of the fussier and less accurate English version done by Helen Lowe-Porter for the original publication.)…What is especially noteworthy about The Tables of the Law among Mann''s fictions is its playfulness." —Robert Alter, London Review of Books "His senses were hot, and so he yearned for spirituality, purity, and holiness—the invisible, which seemed to him spiritual, holy, and pure." Thus Thomas Mann introduces Moses in The Tables of the Law, the Nobel Prize winner''s retelling of the prophet''s life. Invited in 1943 to write this story as a defense of the Decalogue, Mann reveals how strange and forbidding Moses'' task was. As "the Lawgiver"—endowed with the wrists and hands of a stonemason—engraves the tablets, so he hews the souls of his people: "Into the stone of the mountain I carved the ABC of human behavior,but it shall also be carved into your flesh and blood, Israel…" Mann''s tale of the ethical founding and molding of a people sharply rebukes the Nazis for their intended destruction of the moral code set down in the Ten Commandments. But does his famous irony and authorial license mock or enhance the Biblical account of the shaping of the Jewish people? You know the Bible story. Now read Mann''s version—it will grip you anew. Newly translated from the German by Marion Faber and Stephen Lehmann. "To present the foundation of law for half the world is no simple task. The Tables of the Law is a historical title following Moses as he is tasked by God to present the ten commandments, providing a human and much different insight on the role of Moses as the Prophet of God. Expertly translated, The Tables of the Law is a solid addition to any literary fiction collection."—Midwest Book Review

An extraordinary collection of stories from the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature - the title story, one of Mann''s most political, explores the rise of facism by way of a mysterious magician in a small Italian village. Mann''s short stories explore his abiding interest in the split nature of humanity and the discordance of the world it inhabits. In ''A Man and his Dog'', domestic tempests are symbols of the muddle of humanity. In ''The Black Swan'', the demands of intellect clash with physical desires. And in ''Mario and the Magician'' a young family on holiday in Italy encounters a creepy entertainer: Cipolla, a hypnotist with a fascist-like will to control his audience. Written between 1918 and 1953, this collection shows the literary development of one of Germany''s most important writers.

"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 Republic Thomas 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 protagonist, the composer Adrian Leverkühn, is the flower of German culture, a brilliant, isolated, overreaching figure, his radical new music a breakneck game played by art at the very edge of impossibility. In return for twenty-four years of unparalleled musical accomplishment, he bargains away his soul—and the ability to love his fellow man. Leverkühn''s life story is a brilliant allegory of the rise of the Third Reich, of Germany''s renunciation of its own humanity and its embrace of ambition and nihilism. It is also Mann''s most profound meditation on the German genius—both national and individual—and the terrible responsibilities of the truly great artist.

From a Nobel Prize for Literature winner and one of the most iconic German writers of the 20th century, Transposed Heads is a beautiful story that explores the complex relationship between the spirit, body, and mind. Inspired by an ancient Hindu legend, Mann’s writes about two Indian friends, Shridaman and Nanda, whom together, decide to decapitate themselves. However, they awaken from their attempted suicides to find their heads restored, but to the wrong body. Now, Sita, the wife of Shridaman must determine the true meaning of identity as she navigates her own feelings as to which representation is her actual husband. As the love-triangle carries on, Mann shows just how entwined our mind, body, and spirit are. “The Transposed Heads is altogether delightful . . . It is certainly the most charming of Mann''s works . . . in short, a restatement in parable form of Mann''s intransigent faith in the human intellect. It is also a rich and subtle analysis of the psychology of friendship and love.”—Sewanee Review

Recounts the enchanted career of the con man extraordinaire Felix Krull--a man unhampered by the moral precepts that govern the conduct of ordinary people.

Presents the correspondence of Thomas and Heinrich Mann

Thomas Mann, fascinated with the concept of genius and with the richness of German culture, found in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe the embodiment of the German culture hero. Mann''s novelistic biography of Goethe was first published in English in 1940. Lotte in Weimar is a vivid dual portrait--a complex study of Goethe and of Lotte, the still-vivacious woman who in her youth was the model for Charlotte in Goethe''s widely-read The Sorrows of Young Werther. Lotte''s thoughts, as she anticipates meeting Goethe again after forty years, and her conversations with those in Weimar who knew the great man, allow Mann to assess Goethe''s genius from many points of view. Hayden White''s fresh appraisal of the novel reveals its consonances with our own concerns. Thomas Mann, fascinated with the concept of genius and with the richness of German culture, found in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe the embodiment of the German culture hero. Mann''s novelistic biography of Goethe was first published in English in 1940. Lotte in Weimar is a vivid dual portrait--a complex study of Goethe and of Lotte, the still-vivacious woman who in her youth was the model for Charlotte in Goethe''s widely-read The Sorrows of Young Werther. Lotte''s thoughts, as she anticipates meeting Goethe again after forty years, and her conversations with those in Weimar who knew the great man, allow Mann to assess Goethe''s genius from many points of view. Hayden White''s fresh appraisal of the novel reveals its consonances with our own concerns.