Six Early Stories

by Thomas Mann

Book Overview

When they think of the stories of the great German, Nobel prize-winning -author Thomas Mann, most American readers recall "Stories of Three Decades," translated in 1936; however, that edition... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1557132984
• ISBN13: 9781557132987
• Release Date: August 1997
• Publisher: Sun & Moon
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Post-Romantic Fiction

In these overlooked early stories, the great German Novelist Thomas Mann, best know for his novella Death in Venice, and his massive novel, Magic Mountain (set in Switzerland), experiments with the character of the sensitive (sometimes sickly) artist skittering on the outskirts, or being powerfully pulled in, to romantic and philosophical infatuation. Said to mark the introduction of psychology into romantic fiction, the stories (such as Fallen, 1898, and The Will to Happiness, 1896) were written in the so-called Gay Nineties (the 1890s)--the decade which took with it Oscar Wilde and Friedrich Nietzsche. In these short stories Mann is playful but works with a precociously masterful touch. His themes are romance, deception, and the limitations of previous literary convention. In one story a desirable actress turns out to be a prostitute, in another a homely woman admired for her mind turns down the artist after he changes his about her desirability,and in perhaps the most powerful story, a most desirable spouse is revealed to be the exact opposite--perhaps. Nietzsche's preoccupation with surfaces, the infinite artistic allure of deception, and the gulf separating the outside world from that of the human mind are deftly handled in these early stories by an acknowledged master of the fictional form.