H. T. Lowe-Porter

The story involves a young man (Hans Castorp), who visits a cousin in a sanatorium in the Swiss Alps before World War I. After manifesting symptoms of tuberculosis, he remains there for seven years. The characters he meets during this time forms a microcosm of pre-war Europe and represents a classic example of the German Bildungsroman. The work was instrumental in winning Mann the Nobel Prize in Literature for 1929.

Royal Highness (German: Königliche Hoheit) is a 1909 novel by Thomas Mann. It is Mann's second novel and was written between the summer of 1906 and February 1909. Royal Highness is characterized by its fairytale-like qualities and was modeled after Mann's own romance and marriage to Katia Mann in February 1905. First published in 1909 in Die neue Rundschau, the novel was met with great enthusiasm from the public. However, it was met with a more divided...

Retelling of a medieval legend "of the exceeding mercy of God and the birth of the Pope Gregory."

Mario and the Magician is one of Mann's most political stories. Mann openly criticizes fascism, a choice which later became one of the grounds for his exile to Switzerland following Hitler's rise to power. The sorcerer, Cipolla, is analogous to the fascist dictators of the era with their fiery speeches and rhetoric. The story was especially timely, considering the tensions in Europe when it was written. Stalin had just seized power in Russia, Mussolini...

A collection of biographical and critical essays by Thomas Mann on celebrated authors, composers, and other persons, in English translations.

"Here Thomas Mann tells the story of a young solitary's rise to world fame; he gives a delightful account of a youthful celebrity's achievement of personal happiness; and he reports on the growing inveolement of the middle-aged man and artist with the demands of his times"--Jacket.

"In thinly fictionized form this is a segment of the biography of Goya, court painter to Spain of the troubled Napoleonic era --a superb piece of historical recreation rather than a definitive life of Goya. Already accepted as Spain's leading portrait painter, successor to the mantle of Velasquez, Goya, at the time of the story's opening, is at a turning point in his career. He is about to meet the dominant woman in his life, (a life checkered with...