Death in Venice.

MANN, Thomas.

$9,500.00

Item Number: 140382

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930.

First edition of this translation of Mann’s classic novel. Octavo, original cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “Dedicated to Mr. Carl Lammle by Thomas Mann 15.VII.36.” Translated from the German by H.T. Lowe-Porter. Introduction by Ludwig Lewisohn. Near fine in the rare original dust jacket with some expert restoration to the extremities. Rare and desirable signed and inscribed, this is the first example of this edition we have encountered.

 

"Thomas Mann is one of the greatest and most widely read authors of the 20th century… An innovative stylist and synthesizer of the intellectual trends of his time, Mann exerted much influence on modern fiction not only in Germany but in Europe and in both Americas as well. His perceptiveness as an interpreter of Western cultural heritage and his skill as a cosmopolitan teacher of democratic and humanistic values earned him recognition as a 'mirror of his age' and a 'citizen of the world'… Among Mann's many well-written works of short fiction, "Death in Venice" (1928), a novella based on Mann's impressions during his stay in Venice, is the most famous… Typically for Mann, the novella deals with the problem of the unhappy, sick artist, Gustav von Aschenbach, who envies the healthy and 'normal' people of the bourgeois society" (Pribic, 262-3).