Acquisitions (56): Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann: Six Early Stories (1997)

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Thomas Mann (1875-1955)


Thomas Mann: Six Early Stories (1997)
[Amazon.com - ordered: September 17 / received: October 27, 2021]:

Thomas Mann. Six Early Stories. 1893-1908. Trans. Peter Constantine. Ed. Burton Pike. Sun & Moon Classics. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1997.

1. A Vision: Prose Sketch (1893)
2. Fallen (1894)
3. The Will to Happiness (1896)
4. Death (1897)
5. Avenged: Study for a Novella (1897)
6. Anecdote (1908)

Thomas Mann: Six Early Stories (1997)

These early stories, ably translated by Peter Constantine and edited by Burton Pike, are well worth reading. They are also a welcome addition to the body of Mann's work in English. But they are something more. They remind us of what has been lost in the dissolution and passing of modernism. The boldness, daring and risk-taking in both formal, technical matters and in explicit, thematic explorations remain as admirable today as they were a century ago.

So said Academic and Literary Critic Steven Marcus, at any rate.

To understand what he meant, it's probably useful to see a list of the actual stories he was talking about. Mann is, after all, much better known for his novels and novellas than for his shorter works, so it can be tempting at times to overlook the latter:

Short Stories:


1. Vision [A Vision] (1893)
2. Gefallen [Fallen] (1894)
3. Der Wille zum Glück [The Will to Happiness] (1896)
4. Enttäuschung [Disillusionment] (1896)
5. Der kleine Herr Friedemann [Little Herr Friedemann] (1896)
6. Der Tod [Death] (1897)
7. Der Bajazzo [The Dilettante] (1897)
8. Gerächt [Avenged] (1897)
9. Luischen [Little Lizzy] (1897 / 1900)
10. Tobias Mindernickel (1898)
11. Der Kleiderschrank [The Wardrobe] (1899)
12. Der Weg zum Friedhof [The Way to the Churchyard] (1900)
13. Die Hungernden [The Hungry] (1903)
14. Das Wunderkind [The Child Prodigy] (1903)
15. Ein Glück [A Gleam] (1904)
16. Beim Propheten [At the Prophet's] (1904)
17. Schwere Stunde [A Weary Hour] (1905)
18. Wӓlsungenblut [The Blood of the Walsungs] (1905)
19. Das Eisenbahnunglück [The Railway Accident] (1907)
20. Anekdote [Anecdote] (1908)
21. Wie Jappe und Do Escobar sich prügelten [The Fight between Jappe and Do Escobar] (1911)
22. Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull [Felix Krull] (1911 / 1922)

Novellas:


23. Gladius Dei (1902)
24. Tristan (1903)
25. Tonio Kröger (1903)
26. Der Tod in Venedig [Death in Venice] (1912)
27. Herr und Hund [A Man and His Dog / Bashan and I] (1918)
28. Unordnung und frühes Leid [Disorder and Early Sorrow] (1925)
29. Mario und der Zauberer [Mario and the Magician] (1930)
30. Die vertauschten Köpfe – Eine indische Legende [The Transposed Heads] (1940)
31. Das Gesetz [The Tables of the Law] (1944)
32. Die Betrogene: Erzählung [The Black Swan] (1954)

Plays:


33. Fiorenza [Florence] (1905)

Thomas Mann: Stories of Three Decades (1936)

Everything listed in bold in the list above is included in the collection Stories of Three Decades, translated by Helen T. Lowe-Porter, and published in 1936. Everything underlined is included in Six Early Stories, translated by Peter Constantine and published sixty years later, in 1997. The three remaining novellas (1940-1954) were added to the revised 1961 edition of the 1936 collection:

Thomas Mann: Stories of a Lifetime (1961)

If you want to see them all in their correct sequence, you'll have to resort to one or other of the numerous German editions of his Sämtliche Erzählungen [Complete Stories]. You'll see pictured below volume 2 of the paperback edition I happen to own:

Thomas Mann: Die Erzählungen (1975)

Die Erzählungen, Erster Band. 2 vols. 1975. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1981.

1. Vision (1893)
2. Gefallen (1894)
3. Der Wille zum Glück (1896)
4. Enttäuschung (1896)
5. Der Tod (1897)
6. Der kleine Herr Friedemann (1896)
7. Der Bajazzo (1897)
8. Gerächt (1897)
9. Luischen (1897 / 1900)
10. Tobias Mindernickel (1898)
11. Der Kleiderschrank (1899)
12. Der Weg zum Friedhof (1900)
13. Gladius Dei (1902)
14. Tristan (1903)
15. Die Hungernden (1903)
16. Tonio Kröger (1903)
17. Das Wunderkind (1903)
18. Ein Glück (1904)
19. Beim Propheten (1904)
20. Schwere Stunde (1905)
21. Wӓlsungenblut (1905)
22. Anekdote (1908)
23. Das Eisenbahnunglück (1907)
24. Wie Jappe und Do Escobar sich prügelten (1911)
25. Der Tod in Venedig (1912)

Die Erzählungen, Zweiter Band. 2 vols. 1975. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1983.

1. Herr und Hund (1918)
2. Unordnung und frühes Leid (1925)
3. Mario und der Zauberer (1930)
4. Die vertauschten Köpfe – Eine indische Legende (1940)
5. Das Gesetz (1944)
6. Die Betrogene: Erzählung (1954)
7. Fiorenza (1905)
8. Gesang vom Kindchen: Idylle (1919)

The main addition here is the poem "Gesang vom Kindchen: Idylle" [Song of the Child: Idyll], dealing with the early days of his daughter Elisabeth (born in 1918). So far as I know, that hasn't been translated (as yet) - or at any rate included in any of the standard English language collections.

Thomas Mann: Death in Venice (1912)

So what of the stories themselves? The most celebrated is, of course, Death in Venice. Even before the 1971 Visconti film was released, this was recognised as one of the key novellas that marked the transition from nineteenth to twentieth century values (or lack of same).

Just as Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899) and Henry James's The Turn of the Screw (1898) could be construed as mounting an assault, respectively, on the European Colonial project and the myth of childhood innocence, so Death in Venice questions the disinterested values of High Art.

Gustav von Aschenbach, the great writer, is as bedevilled by lust and pettiness as any petit bourgeois merchant or downtrodden peasant - the only real difference between them is that he is more hypocritical about his desires.

If one had to tease out a single connected theme from Thomas Mann's complex and variegated short stories, it would be this conflict between what he sees as the sickness and neuroticism intrinsic to the artistic personality, and the blunt acquisitiveness of European commerce and industrialism. Mann is drawn to both, yet content with neither, and he finds himself cycling around and around in a kind of mirror maze.

I suppose that my own personal favourite is probably the late story "Disorder and Early Sorrow", but I'm pretty keen on most of the others, too - and looking forward to reading the extra, omitted ones when I receive the copy of Six Early Stories I have on order.

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Thomas Mann: Doctor Faustus (1948)

Thomas Mann: Doctor Faustus: The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkühn as Told by a Friend. 1947. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948.

Among the other aspects of Thomas Mann's work I'd like to get straight - in a bibliographical sense, that is - are the successive volumes of essays that appeared over the years both in Britain and the United States.

To this end, I've ordered Doctor Faustus (above), which I already had in a paperback edition, because it was included as part of a set with Mann's late book, below, 'explaining' the significance of the novel: to him, at any rate.

Thomas Mann: The Story of a Novel (1961)

Thomas Mann: The Story of a Novel: The Genesis of Doctor Faustus. Trans. Richard & Clara Winston. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961.

Then there's the fascinating volume, below, which contains Mann's essay on his psychic experiences. As it turns out, only one of these three essays is included in the late compilation Essays of Three Decades (1947).

Thomas Mann: Three Essays (1929)

Thomas Mann: Three Essays. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1929.

1. Friedrich und die große Koalition [Frederick and the Great Coalition] (1915)
2. Goethe und Tolstoi [Goethe and Tolstoy] (1922)
3. Okkulte Erlebnisse [An Experience in the Occult] (1924)

Then there's his autobiographical sketch: first published in translation in 1930, shortly after it appeared in German, but not reprinted for a number of years after that:

Thomas Mann: A Sketch of My Life (1930 / 1960)

Thomas Mann: A Sketch of My Life. ['Lebensabriß', 1930]. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter. 1930. A Borzoi Book. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1960.

And finally there's this useful book, which collects Mann's major essays from the First World War era, thus charting the early stages of his progression from German patriot to Liberal Democrat.

Thomas Mann: Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man (1918 / 2021)

Thomas Mann: Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man / Thoughts in Wartime / On the German Republic. ['Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen', 1918; 'Gedanken im Kriege', 1914; 'Von deutscher Republik', 1922]. Trans. Walter D. Morris, Mark Lilla & Cosima Mattner, Lawrence Rainey. 1983, 2021, 2007. Introduction by Mark Lilla. New York: New York Review Books, 2021.

These six books, together with the ones I already have, constitute a pretty good coverage of most of his major work, though there are certainly some further bibliographical rareties which I'm not sure I actually need to own at this stage.

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Thomas Mann (Hollywood, 1940s)

Paul Thomas Mann
(1875-1955)

Thomas Mann: Buddenbrooks (1901)

Books I own are marked in bold:

Novels:


1. Buddenbrooks – Verfall einer Familie (1901)
   • Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family. 1902. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter. 1924. London: Secker & Warburg, 1947.
   • Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family. 1902. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter. 1924. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1957.


Thomas Mann: Royal Highness (1909)



2. Königliche Hoheit (1909)
   • Royal Highness. 1909. Trans. A. Cecil Curtis. 1926. Rev. Constance McNab. 1962. Penguin Modern Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979.


Thomas Mann: Der Zauberberg (1924)



3. Der Zauberberg (1924)
   • The Magic Mountain. 1924. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter. 1928. London: Secker & Warburg, 1948.
   • The Magic Mountain: With a Postscript by the Author on The Making of the Novel. 1924. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter. 1928. London: Nationwide Book Service, 1979.


Thomas Mann: The Magic Mountain, trans. Helen T. Lowe-Porter (1927)





Thomas Mann: Joseph und seine Brüder (1933-34)



4. Joseph und seine Brüder (1933-1943)
   1. Die Geschichten Jaakobs (1933)
   2. Der junge Joseph (1934)
   3. Joseph in Ägypten (1936)
   4. Joseph, der Ernährer (1943)
   • Joseph and His Brothers. ['The Stories of Jacob' (1933 / 1934); 'Young Joseph' (1934 / 1935); 'Joseph in Egypt' (1936 / 1938); 'Joseph the Provider' (1943 / 1944)]. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter. 1948. London: Secker & Warburg, 1956.
   • Joseph and His Brothers. ['The Stories of Jacob' (1933 / 1934); 'Young Joseph' (1934 / 1935); 'Joseph in Egypt' (1936 / 1938); 'Joseph the Provider' (1943 / 1944)]. Trans. Helen T. Lowe-Porter. Penguin Modern Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978.


Thomas Mann: Joseph and His Brothers, trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter (1948)



5. Lotte in Weimar (1939)
   • Lotte in Weimar. 1939. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter. London: Secker & Warburg, 1940.


Thomas Mann: Lotte in Weimar (1939)



6. Doktor Faustus (1947)
   • Doctor Faustus: The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkühn as Told by a Friend. 1947. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter. A Borzoi Book. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1948.
   • Doctor Faustus: The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkühn as Told by a Friend. 1947. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter. 1948. Penguin Modern Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968.


Thomas Mann: Doctor Faustus (1947)



7. Der Erwählte (1951)
   • The Holy Sinner. 1951. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter. 1952. Penguin Modern Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965.


Thomas Mann: The Holy Sinner (1951)



8. Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull. Der Memoiren erster Teil (1911 / 1954)
   • Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man: Memoirs Part I. 1954. Trans. Denver Lindley. 1955. Penguin Modern Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973.




Thomas Mann: Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man (1954)


Short Stories & Novellas:




Thomas Mann: Death in Venice / Tristan / Tonio Kröger (1972)



9. Death in Venice / Tristan / Tonio Kröger. 1912, 1903, 1902. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter. 1928. Penguin Modern Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972.
   1. Death in Venice (1912)
   2. Tristan (1903)
   3. Tonio Kröger (1903)
10. Stories of Three Decades. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter. The Modern Library. New York: Random House, Inc., 1936.
    1. Little Herr Friedemann (1897)
    2. Disillusionment (1896)
    3. The Dilettante (1897)
    4. Tobias Mindernickel (1897)
    5. Little Lizzy (1897)
    6. The Wardrobe (1899)
    7. The Way to the Churchyard (1901)
    8. Tonio Kröger (1903)
    9. Tristan (1903)
    10. The Hungry (1903)
    11. The Infant Prodigy (1903)
    12. Gladius Dei (1902)
    13. Fiorenza (1904)
    14. A Gleam (1904)
    15. At the Prophet's (1904)
    16. A Weary Hour (1905)
    17. The Blood of the Walsungs (1905)
    18. Railway Accident (1907)
    19. The Fight between Jappe and Do Escobar (1911)
    20. Felix Krull (1911)
    21. Death in Venice (1912)
    22. A Man and His Dog (1918)
    23. Disorder and Early Sorrow (1925)
    24. Mario and the Magician (1929)
    • Stories of Three Decades. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter. 1936. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974.


Thomas Mann: Stories of a Lifetime: The Collected Stories (2 vols: 1961)



11. Stories of a Lifetime: The Collected Stories. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter. 1936. Vol. 1 of 2. Mercury Books 8. London: The Heinemann Group of Publishers, 1961.
    1. Little Herr Friedemann (1897)
    2. Disillusionment (1896)
    3. The Dilettante (1897)
    4. Tobias Mindernickel (1897)
    5. Little Lizzy (1897)
    6. The Wardrobe (1899)
    7. The Way to the Churchyard (1901)
    8. The Hungry (1902)
    9. Tristan (1902)
    10. Gladius Dei (1902)
    11. Tonio Kröger (1903)
    12. The Infant Prodigy (1903)
    13. A Gleam (1904)
    14. Fiorenza (1904)
    15. At the Prophet's (1904)
    16. A Weary Hour (1905)
    17. The Blood of the Walsungs (1905)
    18. Railway Accident (1907)
    19. The Fight between Jappe and Do Escobar (1911)
12. Stories of a Lifetime: The Collected Stories. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter. 1936. Vol. 2 of 2. Mercury Books 9. London: The Heinemann Group of Publishers, 1961.
    1. Death in Venice (1912)
    2. A Man and His Dog (1918)
    3. Disorder and Early Sorrow (1925)
    4. Mario and the Magician (1929)
    5. The Transposed Heads (1940)
    6. The Tables of the Law (1944)
    7. The Black Swan (1953)
13. Mario and the Magician and Other Stories. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter. 1961. Penguin Modern Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975.
    1. A Man and His Dog (1918)
    2. Disorder and Early Sorrow (1925)
    3. Mario and the Magician (1929)
    4. The Transposed Heads (1940)
    5. The Tables of the Law (1944)
    6. The Black Swan (1953)
14. Death in Venice and Other Stories. Trans. David Luke (1988)
    1. Little Herr Friedemann (1896)
    2. The Joker (1897)
    3. The Road to the Churchyard (1900)
    4. Gladius Dei (1902)
    5. Tristan (1903)
    6. Tonio Kroger (1903)
    7. Death in Venice (1912)
15. Six Early Stories. Trans. Peter Constantine. Ed. Burton Pike. Sun & Moon Classics. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1997.
    1. A Vision, "Prose Sketch" (1893)
    2. Fallen (1894)
    3. The Will to Happiness (1896)
    4. Death (1897)
    5. Avenged, "Study for a Novella"(1897)
    6. Anecdote (1908)
16. Death in Venice and Other Tales. Trans. Joachim Neugroschel (1998)
    1. The Will for Happiness (1896)
    2. Little Herr Friedemann (1896)
    3. Tobias Mindernickel (1898)
    4. Little Lizzy (1897)
    5. Gladius Dei (1902)
    6. Tristan (1903)
    7. The Starvelings: A Study (1903)
    8. Tonio Kröger (1903)
    9. The Wunderkind (1903)
    10. Harsh Hour (1905)
    11. The Blood of the Walsungs (1905)
    12. Death in Venice (1912)
17. Death in Venice and Other Stories. Trans. Jefferson Chase (1999)
    1. Tobias Mindernickel (1898)
    2. Tristan (1903)
    3. Tonio Kröger (1903)
    4. The Child Prodigy (1903)
    5. Hour of Hardship (1905)
    6. Death in Venice (1912)
    7. Man and Dog (1918)




Thomas Mann: Essays of Three Decades (1947)


Non-fiction:


18. Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man. Trans. Walter D. Morris and others. Introduction by Mark Lilla. New York: New York Review Books, 2021.
    1. Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen ['Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man', trans. Walter D. Morris (1983)] (1918)
    2. Gedanken im Kriege ['Thoughts in Wartime', trans. Mark Lilla and Cosima Mattner (2021)] (1914)
    3. Von deutscher Republik ['On the German Republic', trans. Lawrence Rainey (2007)] (1922)
19. Three Essays. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1929.
    1. Friedrich und die große Koalition [Frederick and the Great Coalition] (1915)
    2. Goethe und Tolstoi [Goethe and Tolstoy] (1922)
    3. Okkulte Erlebnisse [An Experience in the Occult] (1924)
20. A Sketch of My Life. ['Lebensabriß', 1930]. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter. A Borzoi Book. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1960.
21. Past Masters and Other Papers. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter (1933)
22. An Exchange of Letters. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter (1937)
23. Freud, Goethe, Wagner. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter & Rita Matthias-Rail (1937)
24. The Coming Victory of Democracy. Trans. Agnes E. Meyer. 1938. London: Secker & Warburg, 1938.
25. This Peace. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter (1938)
26. This War. Trans. Eric Sutton (1940)
27. Order of the Day: Political Essays and Speeches of Two Decades. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter, Agnes E. Meyer & Eric Sutton (1942)
28. Listen, Germany! Twenty-Five Radio Messages to the German People over the BBC (1943)
29. Essays of Three Decades. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter. London: Secker & Warburg, 1947.
    1. Goethe's Faust (1938)
    2. Goethe's Career As a Man of Letters (1932)
    3. Goethe as Representative of the Bourgeois Age (1932)
    4. Goethe and Tolstoy (1922)
    5. Anna Karenina (1939)
    6. Lessing (1929)
    7. Kleist's Amphitryon (1926)
    8. Chamisso (1911)
    9. Platen (1930)
    10. Theodor Storm (1930)
    11. The Old Fontane (1910)
    12. Sufferings and Greatness of Richard Wagner (1933)
    13. Richard Wagner and the Ring (1937)
    14. Schopenhauer (1938)
    15. Freud and the Future (1936)
    16. Voyage with Don Quixote (1934)
30. The Story of a Novel: The Genesis of Doctor Faustus. ['Die Entstehung des Doktor Faustus', 1949]. Trans. Richard & Clara Winston. A Borzoi Book. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961.
31. Last Essays. Trans. Richard & Clara Winston and Tania & James Stern. 1958. London: Secker & Warburg, 1959.
    1. On Schiller
    2. Fantasy on Goethe
    3. Nietzsche's Philosophy in the Light of Recent History
    4. Chekhov
    5. Appendix: 'A Weary Hour'. Trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter (1905)


Thomas Mann: Last Essays (1958)


Secondary:




Thomas Mann: Diaries 1918-1939 (1982)



32. Diaries 1918-1939: 1918-1921; 1933-1939. Ed. Hermann Kesten. 1977-80. Trans. Richard & Clara Winston. 1982. London: Robin Clark, 1984.


Richard Winston, ed.: The Letters of Thomas Mann, 2 vols: 1889-1942 / 1943-1955 (1970)



33. Winston, Richard & Clara, ed. & trans. Letters of Thomas Mann, 1889-1955. Vol. I: 1889-1942. 2 vols. London: Secker & Warburg, 1970.
34. Winston, Richard & Clara, ed. & trans. Letters of Thomas Mann, 1889-1955. Vol. II: 1943-1955. 2 vols. London: Secker & Warburg, 1970.
35. Letters of Thomas Mann, 1889-1955. Ed. & Trans. Richard & Clara Winston. 1970. Penguin Modern Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975.


Richard Winston, ed.: The Letters of Thomas Mann, 1889-1955 (1975)



36. Carlsson, Anni & Volker Michels, ed. The Hesse-Mann Letters: The Correspondence of Hermann Hesse and Thomas Mann, 1910-1955. 1968. Trans. Ralph Manheim. Foreword by Theodore Ziolkowski. 1975. London: Peter Owen, 1976.

The Hesse-Mann Letters (1976)

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• category - German Literature: Prose

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