Most Popular Books by Thomas Mann

The Magic Mountain (German: Der Zauberberg) is a novel by Thomas Mann, first published in German in November 1924. It is widely considered to be one of the most influential works of twentieth-century German literature. Mann started writing what was to become The Magic Mountain in 1912. It began as a much shorter narrative which revisited in a comic manner aspects of Death in Venice, a novella that he was preparing for publication. The newer work reflected his experiences and impressions during a period when his wife, who was suffering from a lung complaint, resided at Dr. Friedrich Jessen''s Waldsanatorium in Davos, Switzerland for several months. In May and June 1912, Mann visited her and became acquainted with the team of doctors and patients in this cosmopolitan institution. According to Mann, in the afterword that was later included in the English translation of his novel, this stay inspired his opening chapter ("Arrival"). The outbreak of World War I interrupted his work on the book. The savage conflict and its aftermath led the author to undertake a major re-examination of European bourgeois society. He explored the sources of the destructiveness displayed by much of civilised humanity. He was also drawn to speculate about more general questions related to personal attitudes to life, health, illness, sexuality and mortality. Given this, Mann felt compelled to radically revise and expand the pre-war text before completing it in 1924. Der Zauberberg was eventually published in two volumes by S. Fischer Verlag in Berlin. The narrative opens in the decade before World War I. It introduces the protagonist, Hans Castorp, the only child of a Hamburg merchant family. Following the early death of his parents, Castorp has been brought up by his grandfather and later, by a maternal uncle named James Tienappel. Castorp is in his early 20s, about to take up a shipbuilding career in Hamburg, his home town. Before beginning work, he undertakes a journey to visit his tubercular cousin, Joachim Ziemssen, who is seeking a cure in a sanatorium in Davos, high up in the Swiss Alps. In the opening chapter, Castorp leaves his familiar life and obligations, in what he later learns to call "the flatlands", to visit the rarefied mountain air and introspective small world of the sanatorium.

A reworking of the Faust legend in which a fictional German composer, Adrian Leverkühn, makes a pact with Mephistopheles for early fame. After confessing his pact, Leverkühn collapses, dying ten years later, bedridden and helpless. The composer''s life parallels the rise and fall of Nazism.

"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.

V. 1. Joseph and his brothers.--v. 2. Young Joseph.--v. 3. Joseph in Egypt.--v. 4. Joseph the provider.

It was during the war that Thomas Mann, one of the great modern stylists, wrote this simple little idyll as a refuge and relief. It was a flight from the hideous realities of the world to the deeper realities of Nature, from the hate and inhumanity of man to the devotion and lovableness of the brute. This delectable symphony of human and canine psychology, of love of nature and of pensive humour, struck the true note of universality, a document packed with greater potencies in this direction than the deliberate, idealistic manifestos of the pacifists. It is for these reasons that the book has acquired a permanent charm, value, and significance, not only beyond the confines of the war and the confines of the author''s own land and language, but also beyond those of the period. In every land there still exists the same friendly and primitive relation between man and the dog, brought to its fullest expression of strength and beauty in the environment of the green world, rural or suburban. Simple and unpretentious as a statement by Francis d''Assisi, yet full of a gentle modern sophistication and humour, this little work will bring delight and refreshment to all who seek flight from the heavy-laden hour. It is, moreover, one of the most subtle and penetrating studies of the psychology of the dog that has ever been written-tender yet unsentimental, realistic and full of the detail of masterly observation and description, yet in its final form and precipitation a work of exquisite literary art. - Hermann George Scheffauer about "Bashan and I" written by Thomas Mann

The correspondence of Theodor Adorno and Thomas Mann documents a rare encounter of creative tension between literary tradition and aesthetic modernism spanning the years 1943-1955.

Minuten vergingen, bis man dem seitlich im Stuhle Hinabgesunkenen zur Hilfe eilte. Man brachte ihn auf sein Zimmer. Und noch desselben Tages empfing eine respektvoll ersch�tterte Welt die Nachricht von seinem Tode. Mann selbst hat den Tod in Venedig die ,,Trag�die einer Entw�rdigung" genannt und dabei den Begriff Trag�die durchaus w�rtlich gemeint, Mann described Death in Venice as "the tragedy of degradation", and in so doing he meant this quite literally; his work is full of classical allusions and dark motifs, enriching the compelling narrative of the faltering writer von Aschenbach and his quiet love for Tadzio. The book is short but immensely powerful, and Venice especially is depicted as nowhere else in German literature, as a city of passion and intrigue, but also of sickness and decay. This student''s edition of Death in Venice contains the full 1912 text, complete with background notes and a biography of the author, as well as spacious margins for annotation. Visit www.cbypublishing.co.uk to view our full range of products.

Tonio Kroger is a novel written by Thomas Mann and published in 1903. This work was the first one that Mann published. Tonio Kroger creates a pair with Death in Venice, a more famous story, because both tell of an artist''s life and his travels. Though the plots are different and the novels end quite differently, both describe Mann''s views on art.

Joseph and His Brothers (Joseph und seine Brüder) is a four-part novel by Thomas Mann, written over the course of 16 years. Mann retells the familiar stories of Genesis, from Jacob to Joseph (chapters 27-50), setting it in the historical context of the Amarna Period. Mann considered it his greatest work. The tetralogy consists of: The Stories of Jacob (Die Geschichten Jaakobs; written December 1926 to October 1930, Genesis 27-36) Young Joseph (Der junge Joseph; written January 1931 to June 1932, Genesis 37) Joseph in Egypt (Joseph in Ägypten; written July 1932 to 23 August 1936, Genesis 38-39) Joseph the Provider (Joseph, der Ernährer; written 10 August 1940 to 4 January 1943, Genesis 40-50) Mann''s presentation of the ancient Orient and the origins of Judaism is influenced by Alfred Jeremias'' 1904 Das Alte Testament im Lichte des Alten Orients, emphasizing Babylonian influence in the editing of Genesis, and by the work of Dmitry Merezhkovsky. Mann sets the story in the 14th century BC and makes Akhenaten the pharaoh who appoints Joseph his vice-regent. Joseph is aged 28 at the ascension of Akhenaten, which would mean he was born about 1380 BC in standard Egyptian chronology, and Jacob in the mid-1420s BC. Other contemporary rulers mentioned include Tushratta and Suppiluliuma. A dominant topic of the novel is Mann''s exploration of the status of mythology and his presentation of the Late Bronze Age mindset with regard to mythical truths and the emergence of monotheism. Events of the story of Genesis are frequently associated and identified with other mythic topics. Central is the notion of underworld and the mythical descent to the underworld. Jacob''s sojourn in Mesopotamia (hiding from the wrath of Esau) is paralleled with Joseph''s life in Egypt (exiled by the jealousy of his brothers), and on a smaller scale his captivity in the well; they are further identified with the "hellraid" of Inanna-Ishtar-Demeter, the Mesopotamian Tammuz myth, the Jewish Babylonian captivity as well as the Harrowing of Hell of Jesus Christ.