{"title":"Books by Thomas Mann","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780099428657","title":"Death in Venice \u0026 Other Stories","description":"\u003cb\u003eA magnificent city is touched by disease. An ageing writer is blinded by desire. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003eThomas Mann’s haunting collection gathers seven stories of desire, repression and self-deception.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAgeing writer Gustav von Aschenbach is on holiday in Venice when he notices a fellow guest in the foyer of his hotel: an exceptionally beautiful boy staying there with his family.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAdmiration gives way to obsession as Aschenbach’s days begin to revolve around seeing the boy. Meanwhile, ominous signs point to disease spreading through the magnificent but decaying city. Blinded by his fixation, Aschenbach fails to recognise the danger around him.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn these seven stories, Mann returns again and again to the private life beneath the public self. The result is a collection of European classics marked by elegance, moral tension and haunting psychological depth.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA classic collection of literary stories, \u003ci\u003eDeath in Venice And Other Stories\u003c\/i\u003e is ideal for readers drawn to European classics, psychological fiction and haunting studies of beauty, obsession and moral disintegration.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e(Cover may vary)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43201373798578,"sku":"9780099428657","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780099428657.jpg?v=1786011611"},{"product_id":"9780749386429","title":"The Magic Mountain","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAs Seen on BBC Between the Covers\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA brief visit to a Swiss sanatorium becomes a life-altering seven-year odyssey.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHans Castorp arrives at a sanatorium in the Swiss Alps to visit his cousin, intending to stay for just three weeks. But when he falls ill, he remains and is drawn in by the introspection and erudition that define life in the mountains. As his stay extends to seven transformative years, Hans falls in love and becomes intoxicated with the ideas he hears at the clinic - ideas which will strain and crack apart in a world on the verge of the First World War.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Magnificent... a beautiful, feverish account of obsessive love' Jonathan Coe, \u003ci\u003eGuardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'The greatest German novelist of the 20th century' \u003ci\u003eSpectator\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(Cover may vary)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43204083056818,"sku":"9780749386429","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780749386429.jpg?v=1786015080"},{"product_id":"9780749386474","title":"Buddenbrooks","description":"A Major Literary Event: a brilliant new translation of Thomas Mann's first great novel, one of the two for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1929.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBuddenbrooks, first published in Germany in 1900, when Mann was only twenty-five, has become a classic of modem literature -- the story of four generations of a wealthy bourgeois family in northern Germany. With consummate skill, Mann draws a rounded picture of middle-class life: births and christenings; marriages, divorces, and deaths; successes and failures. These commonplace occurrences, intrinsically the same, vary slightly as they recur in each succeeding generation. Yet as the Buddenbrooks family eventually succumbs to the seductions of modernity -- seductions that are at variance with its own traditions -- its downfall becomes certain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn immensity of scope, richness of detail, and fullness of humanity, Buddenbrooks surpasses all other modem family chronicles; it has, indeed, proved a model for most of them. Judged as the greatest of Mann's novels by some critics, it is ranked as among the greatest by all. Thomas Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1929.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43206077251762,"sku":"9780749386474","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780749386474.jpg?v=1786015082"},{"product_id":"9781857152890","title":"The Magic Mountain","description":"\u003cp\u003eWith this dizzyingly rich novel of ideas, Thomas Mann rose to the front ranks of the great modern novelists, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Magic Mountain \u003c\/i\u003etakes place in an exclusive tuberculosis sanatorium in the Swiss Alps-a community devoted to sickness that serves as a fictional microcosm for Europe in the days before the First World War. To this hermetic and otherworldly realm comes Hans Castorp, an \"ordinary young man\" who arrives for a short visit and ends up staying for seven years, during which he succumbs both to the lure of eros and to the intoxication of ideas.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43399476805810,"sku":"9781857152890","price":22.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781857152890_f4889d3e-a814-4fa9-8855-1a7eec64a92c.jpg?v=1786029564"},{"product_id":"9780749386627","title":"Mario and the Magician","description":"\u003cp\u003eMann’s short stories explore his abiding interest in the split nature of humanity and the discordance of the world it inhabits. In ‘A Man and his Dog’, domestic tempests are symbols of the muddle of humanity. In ‘The Black Swan’, the demands of intellect clash with physical desires. And in ‘Mario and the Magician’ a young family on holiday in Italy encounters a creepy entertainer: Cipolla, a hypnotist with a fascist-like will to control his audience.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWritten between 1918 and 1953, this collection shows the literary development of one of Germany’s most important writers.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56298748281205,"sku":"9780749386627","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780749386627_dc7f4fbf-c259-4491-bab5-55e85b1db0fa.jpg?v=1786015085"},{"product_id":"9781681375311","title":"Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man","description":"\u003cb\u003eA classic, controversial book exploring German culture and identity by the author of \u003ci\u003eDeath in Venice\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Magic Mountain\u003c\/i\u003e, now back in print.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen the Great War broke out in August 1914, Thomas Mann, like so many people on both sides of the conflict, was exhilarated. Finally, the era of decadence that he had anatomized in \u003ci\u003eDeath in Venice\u003c\/i\u003e had come to an end; finally, there was a cause worth fighting and even dying for, or, at least when it came to Mann himself, writing about. Mann immediately picked up his pen to compose a paean to the German cause. Soon after, his elder brother and lifelong rival, the novelist Heinrich Mann, responded with a no less determined denunciation. Thomas took it as an unforgivable stab in the back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe bitter dispute between the brothers would swell into the strange, tortured, brilliant, sometimes perverse literary performance that is \u003ci\u003eReflections of a Nonpolitical Man\u003c\/i\u003e, a book that Mann worked on and added to throughout the war and that bears an intimate relation to his postwar masterpiece \u003ci\u003eThe Magic Mountain\u003c\/i\u003e. Wild and ungainly though Mann’s reflections can be, they nonetheless constitute, as Mark Lilla demonstrates in a new introduction, a key meditation on the freedom of the artist and the distance between literature and politics.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe NYRB Classics edition includes two additional essays by Mann: “Thoughts in Wartime” (1914), translated by Mark Lilla and Cosima Mattner; and “On the German Republic” (1922), translated by Lawrence Rainey.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56303426306421,"sku":"9781681375311","price":21.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781681375311_b5f4d1e8-c15b-44c5-8d1b-56142ab3153f.jpg?v=1786024547"},{"product_id":"9781784875060","title":"Confessions Of Felix Krull","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eDiscover Thomas Mann's  comic novel of deception and misplaced confidence - back in print for the first time in over twenty years\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Waiter by day, man about Paris by night; the young and good looking Felix Krull has created for himself a personality to charm and deceive the world of wealth. When the Marquis de Venosta makes him a proposal that he can't refuse, the young Felix finds himself on the pathway that will elevate him into the world of riches.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'The most astonishing work that Mann ever wrote and also one of the most perfect' Edwin Muir\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56305262297461,"sku":"9781784875060","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781784875060_f34f5de3-be9c-4b20-9cae-97b9fb4ddd34.jpg?v=1786025515"},{"product_id":"9781857151961","title":"Collected Stories","description":"Famous for his novels, Thomas Mann is more accessible through the shorter fictions which span his entire career. The most famous of these stories is one of the earliest. Death in Venice was made into the celebrated Visconti film, but all his mature preoccupations are present in this story: the need for a sense of meaning in existence, the relationship between life and art, the central role of sexual energy and the strange forms it can take, the place of death and disease, the importance of work, the individual's complex relations with his society and the dominant culture. These themes are developed in a series of brilliant stories, may of them very short and displaying the author's talent for macabre comedy. Dr Faustus and Buddenbrooks are already available in Everyman","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56308681605493,"sku":"9781857151961","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781857151961_6271824a-6b71-4de7-b0c9-9fa484a6fa5d.jpg?v=1786029510"},{"product_id":"9781857151077","title":"Buddenbrooks","description":"\u003cp\u003eThomas Mann's first great novel, written at the age of 25, is an epic study of decadence among the merchant families of Hamburg at the end of the nineteenth century. The novel is based on Mann's own experience as the son of a German merchant prince, but it goes far beyond his own experience in its sweep and comprehensiveness.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe novel is an astounding, semi-autobiographical family epic. Mann portrays the transition of genteel Germanic stability and arrogance to a very modern uncertainty and fear.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56308840792437,"sku":"9781857151077","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781857151077_221b58af-cf44-4524-ba1d-36ed5a6191d1.jpg?v=1786029456"},{"product_id":"9780749386573","title":"Doctor Faustus","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eTo unlock his full creative potential, Adrian Leverkühn makes a lethal pact with nature and intentionally contracts syphilis.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA brilliant young composer, Adrian believes that the disease-induced madness will fuel his genius. But while his music reaches new heights, his mind and morality begin to unravel. Mann's interpretation of the Faustian legend is a story of madness and sanity, genius and corruption, intellectual attainment and Germany's moral fall.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Arguably\u003ci\u003e the\u003c\/i\u003e great German novel' \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56311895425397,"sku":"9780749386573","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780749386573_5adbf6bd-2741-4a7b-a090-d0ae3871cd00.jpg?v=1786015084"},{"product_id":"9781857152876","title":"Joseph and His Brothers","description":"\u003cp\u003eThomas Mann regarded his monumental retelling of the biblical story of Joseph as his magnum opus. He conceived of the four parts-\u003ci\u003eThe Stories of Jacob\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eYoung Joseph\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eJoseph in Egypt\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eJoseph the Provider\u003c\/i\u003e-as a unified narrative, a \"mythological novel\" of Joseph's fall into slavery and his rise to be lord over Egypt. Deploying lavish, persuasive detail, Mann conjures for us the world of patriarchs and pharaohs, the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Palestine, and the universal force of human love in all its beauty, desperation, absurdity, and pain. The result is a brilliant amalgam of humor, emotion, psychological insight, and epic grandeur.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow the award-winning translator John E. Woods gives us a definitive new English version of \u003ci\u003eJoseph and His Brothers \u003c\/i\u003ethat is worthy of Mann's achievement, revealing the novel's exuberant polyphony of ancient and modern voices, a rich music that is by turns elegant, coarse, and sublime.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56313092800885,"sku":"9781857152876","price":35.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781857152876_1a6b8495-5b97-4537-86ce-6aae2c6493cc.jpg?v=1786029562"},{"product_id":"9780198843238","title":"The Buddenbrooks","description":"'All his powers were in decline; the only thing growing stronger in him was the conviction that all this could not last much longer, that his demise was imminent.'The Buddenbrooks (1900) was Thomas Mann's first major success. It draws on his own family history and on his vivid memories of growing up in the commercial town of Lübeck in North Germany. The narrative traces the decline of a wealthy, established merchant family, from their height during the last decades of the nineteenth century, to the onset of uncertainty in the modern world. The novel displays Mann's interest in decline as a psychological process, where artistic sensibility weakens the ruthless business instincts that founded the Buddenbrooks' prosperity. At the centre is the reluctant businessman Thomas Buddenbrook, a tragic figure who conscientiously dedicates himself to a way of life that gradually undermines him. Mike Mitchell's new English translation is accompanied by Ritchie Robertson's introduction and explanatory notes, illuminating the cultural, philosophical, and personal context of the novel's composition.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56367807889781,"sku":"9780198843238","price":11.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780198843238_ca411c5c-cf68-49b5-a7b6-d507f8d410e5.jpg?v=1786012260"},{"product_id":"9780198850076","title":"Death in Venice and Other Stories","description":"'impossible here, absurd, depraved, ludicrous and yet sacred, still honourable, even here: \"I love you!\"'This volume contains a generous selection of the short fiction Thomas Mann published in the years 1897 to 1912, after which he turned to larger-scale projects. The acknowledged classic among the early shorter fiction is the novella Death in Venice, in which Mann develops a lyrical style and a range of mythological allusions, through the forbidden love of a middle-aged man for a teenage boy, a theme with roots in Mann's own emotional experience. In many of his shorter works, Mann uses irony and humour to treat the conflict between sensitive, often artistic souls and the vital, often brutal forces of life. The stories, usually about isolated figures, convey a mixture of humour, sadness, and irony which invites ambivalent responses from readers. This new set of translations by Ritchie Robertson and Nicola Luckhurst is accompanied by explanatory notes and introduction.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56367808184693,"sku":"9780198850076","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780198850076_1d12d2d9-f605-4759-837c-cbbf3b878567.jpg?v=1786012347"},{"product_id":"9780198867722","title":"Doctor Faustus","description":"'Why must I feel that almost all--no, all--of the devices and conventions used by art are today only fit for parody?'Adrian Leverkühn is a composer who, at terrible personal cost, makes the breakthrough from traditional art to extreme modernism and success. Creative and brilliant, he will stop at nothing to achieve greatness. Thomas Mann wrote Doctor Faustus (1947) in American exile during and just after the Second World War. A prominent and long-standing defender of democracy, he sought to understand, in cultural and intellectual terms, how Germany had succumbed to Nazism. Mann structures his story through references to the German legend of Faust and his pact with the Devil. The life of the solitary composer, an ultimately tragic figure, is recounted by his friend and biographer, who represents a sadly ineffectual humanism, and whose social activities provide a panorama of middle-class German society in the early twentieth century. Ritchie Robertson's new English translation is accompanied by detailed annotations and an introduction illuminating the themes of the novel.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56367808741749,"sku":"9780198867722","price":11.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780198867722_0a55e9f3-cb27-4ca2-b283-797a79e50052.jpg?v=1786012618"},{"product_id":"9780241785423","title":"The Magic Mountain","description":"One of the greatest works of twentieth-century European literature, in the definitive English translation‘Home and a settled life not only lay far behind, but also, and more importantly, they lay fathoms below him, and he was still climbing’It is summer time in the Swiss Alps. Hans Castorp, an ‘ordinary young man’, has arrived at an exclusive sanitorium for a brief visit to his convalescent cousin. Once there, time will lose its familiar contours, as Hans himself falls ill and abandons himself in an intoxicating landscape of dreams, beauty and eternal snow. The Magic Mountain is Thomas Mann’s masterpiece: a Bildungsroman that is also an allegory of Europe before the devastations of the First World War, and a mysterious meditation on time, art, sickness and death.   Translated by John E. Woods","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56367898853749,"sku":"9780241785423","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780241785423_7ec47f1e-ab31-46b8-a7c7-e76c90c18336.jpg?v=1786033273"},{"product_id":"9780241785416","title":"Doctor Faustus","description":"The definitive translation of  'Arguably the great German novel' (New York Times)‘This man is mad. Of that there can no longer be any doubt, and it is pitiable that no one representing psychiatric science is part of our circle’In May 1943 a middle-aged scholar retires to his study to reflect on the life and untimely death of his friend, a once-brilliant composer and the flower of German culture. He recalls how, consumed by over-reaching ambition, this friend made an unholy bargain in return for creative genius. How he enjoyed twenty-four years of unrivalled success and musical achievement – until, inevitably, he had to pay his dues. A reworking of the classic Faust legend, Doctor Faustus is one of the twentieth century’s finest novels: a powerful allegory of the rise of the Nazism, and a warning against the seductive attractions of nihilism.   Translated by John E. Woods","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56367898952053,"sku":"9780241785416","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780241785416_65519b46-cafa-4aad-b452-d9de2373b647.jpg?v=1786033272"},{"product_id":"9780241785430","title":"Joseph and his Brothers","description":"The acclaimed, definitive translation of Mann's magnum opus‘Deep is the well of the past. Should we not call it bottomless?’Thomas Mann described Joseph and His Brothers as his ‘pyramid’: his towering literary achievement, although the Nazi regime tried to sabotage its first publication. This lavish, sweeping saga retells the Biblical story of Joseph, whose dreams and visions set him apart from his siblings and lead him first to slavery and ultimately to power and prestige. With rich detail and unexpected humour, Mann paints the lost landscapes of Egypt and Canaan and brings to life the great characters of Genesis – patriarchs, pharaohs, avenged sisters and jealous brothers – in a chronicle of epic grandeur, with a family drama at its heart.   Translated by John E. Woods","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56367899148661,"sku":"9780241785430","price":22.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780241785430_616f0487-d5d6-43d2-b5d1-d9e34f3367e5.jpg?v=1786033274"},{"product_id":"9780241785409","title":"Buddenbrooks","description":"The definitive translation of 'perhaps the first great novel of the 20th century' (New York Times)‘I bear within me the seed, the rudiments, the possibility of life's capacities and endeavours. Where might I be, if I were not here?’Buddenbrooks is one of the original, and greatest, of family chronicles: the story of four generations of a wealthy and bourgeois German dynasty as they experience all the anguish and rewards of human life: births, marriages, divorces, deaths, madness, artistic achievement and bankruptcy. Thomas Mann’s first novel is a richly realized, profoundly moving saga of ‘the decline of a family’ as it succumbs to the forces of modernity. Published when he was only twenty-five, it was one of the two books for which he won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1929.   Translated by John E. Woods","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56367899246965,"sku":"9780241785409","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780241785409_b0433cd3-1f5c-45d7-a3c8-f6866594aa5d.jpg?v=1786033271"},{"product_id":"9781035065196","title":"Death in Venice","description":"An atmospheric story of obsession and inner conflict set in the oppressive heat of a Venetian summer, Death in Venice is considered to be one of Thomas Mann’s greatest works.   Seized by the urge to travel, revered German writer Gustav von Aschenbach books a stay in a hotel on Venice’s Lido. There, in the oppressive summer heat, he becomes intoxicated by the beauty of a young Polish boy who is on holiday with his family. As Aschenbach's struggle between discipline and passion intensifies, Venice itself falls into the grip of disease. Despite the danger and decay around him, Aschenbach is unable to leave.   Death in Venice is part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, pocket-sized classics bound in cloth with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is translated by Shaun Whiteside and features an introduction by Oxford University academic Karolina Watroba.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56368472195445,"sku":"9781035065196","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781035065196_4bcb02b4-1f3b-4b2b-80bc-6218be485dfe.jpg?v=1786017617"},{"product_id":"9781805332701","title":"Love and Enchantment","description":"\u003cb\u003e3 of Thomas Mann’s most gorgeous, subtle stories of love and conflict, in sparkling new translations, from the author of \u003ci\u003eTHE MAGIC MOUNTAIN \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eDEATH IN VENICE.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“The greatest German novelist of the 20th century.” ― \u003ci\u003eSpectator\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis triptych of stories represents some of the finest work by the great German master, Thomas Mann. His matchless understanding of character, subtle ironies and layered plots are on full display in these tales of innocence and experience, the pain of individuality and the consolations and limitations of art.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Tonio Kröger” is a classic story of the artist’s formation, infused with profound melancholy. After early, bruising experiences in love, young Tonio retreats into an ideal world of literature, believing that the artist must retain a distance from the lived experience of life. Never quite able to shake his envy of those who seem able to enjoy the moment, the older Tonio returns to his roots in search of resolution.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlongside this great work are 2 stories that dramatize with profound understanding the conflicts and changes of Mann’s time. In “Disorder and Early Sorrow,” the rush of new sexual freedoms upsets the stable order of older generations at a party during a time of social strain, while “Mario and the Magician” recounts a family’s ill-fated holiday in 1920s Italy, where misunderstandings and bizarre performances reveal the sharp edge of nationalist fervor.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTranslated with luminous clarity by Lesley Chamberlain,\u003ci\u003e Love and Enchantment\u003c\/i\u003e offers an expansively beautiful selection of the work of one of the world’s great writers.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56369237328245,"sku":"9781805332701","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781805332701_ae8f6857-3f6c-4c48-b7a4-f23019a8a328.jpg?v=1786027865"},{"product_id":"9781805332688","title":"Death in Venice","description":"\u003cb\u003eA sumptuous new translation of the sublime novella of desire, obsession, and one man’s downfall; another classic from the author of \u003ci\u003eTHE MAGIC MOUNTAIN\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Probably the greatest of modern German novelists.” ― The \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne of the pre-eminent works of modern European literature, this enthralling story of desire, beauty and infatuation follows the erudite, respectable writer Gustav Aschenbach’s descent into obsession.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAschenbach  has always lived a life of structured routine, but he has begun to be troubled by diminishing creative inspiration from his strict writing schedule. While walking in a cemetery north of Munich, he has a dizzying vision which prompts him to abandon his settled life and travel south to Venice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn checking into his hotel, Aschenbach notices a young Polish boy of perfect, sculptural beauty: Tadzio. As he lingers on at the hotel, Aschenbach falls into an ever-deeper infatuation with the youth, whose curled blond hair and porcelain face fill him with rapture, and even seem to cure his stubborn writer’s block. Ignoring whispered warnings of a cholera outbreak in Venice, Aschenbach stays at the hotel and follows Tadzio with increasing obsession, his mind swirling with mad desire.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eClassical in structure yet roiled by disturbing passion, \u003ci\u003eDeath in Venice\u003c\/i\u003e is an enormously powerful story of one man’s undoing. Full of coiled tension and vivid inner conflict, it is one of Thomas Mann’s greatest masterpieces, and appears here in a lively new translation by Lesley Chamberlain.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56369237557621,"sku":"9781805332688","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781805332688_937f9392-4a55-4735-b967-63e996155ee0.jpg?v=1786027864"},{"product_id":"death-in-venice","title":"Death in Venice","description":"\u003cp\u003eOne of the most famous literary works of the 20th century, the novella \"Death in Venice\" embodies themes that preoccupied Thomas Mann (1875–1955) in much of his work; the duality of art and life, the presence of death and disintegration in the midst of existence, the connection between love and suffering, and the conflict between the artist and his inner self. Mann's handling of these concerns in this story of a middle-aged German writer, torn by his passion for a Polish youth met on holiday in Venice, resulted in a work of great psychological intensity and tragic power. It is presented here in an excellent new translation with extensive commentary on many facets of the story.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57481552920949,"sku":"9780486287140","price":3.49,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780486287140.jpg?v=1786089823"},{"product_id":"the-tables-of-the-law","title":"The Tables of the Law","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"His senses were hot, and so he yearned for spirituality, purity, and holiness—the invisible, which seemed to him spiritual, holy, and pure.\" Thus Thomas Mann introduces Moses in The Tables of the Law, the Nobel Prize winner's retelling of the prophet's life. Invited in 1943 to write this story as a defense of the Decalogue, Mann reveals how strange and forbidding Moses' task was. As \"the Lawgiver\"—endowed with the wrists and hands of a stonemason—engraves the tablets, so he hews the souls of his people: \"Into the stone of the mountain I carved the ABC of human behavior, but it shall also be carved into your flesh and blood, Israel…\" Mann's tale of the ethical founding and molding of a people sharply rebukes the Nazis for their intended destruction of the moral code set down in the Ten Commandments. But does his famous irony and authorial license mock or enhance the Biblical account of the shaping of the Jewish people? You know the Bible story. Now read Mann's version—it will grip you anew.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57484384797045,"sku":"9781589880573","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781589880573.jpg?v=1786266460"},{"product_id":"death-in-venice-1","title":"Death in Venice","description":"\u003cp\u003eAs the ageing Gustav von Aschenbach, a famous author who has recently been ennobled in recognition of his literary achievements, arrives in Venice for a holiday and checks into his Lido hotel, he is struck by the arresting good looks of Tadzio, an aristocratic Polish youth of around fourteen who is sojourning there with his family. Gradually, what starts as a feeling of intense curiosity develops into a profound passion, until Aschenbach begins to follow the adolescent secretly through the streets of the Serenissima and becomes utterly infatuated with his beauty.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eConsidered by many to be Mann’s masterpiece, Death in Venice, first published in 1912 and based on the author’s own stay in Venice the previous year, is presented here in a sparkling new translation by Sander Berg.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABOUT THE SERIES: Alma Classics Evergreens is a series of popular classics. All the titles in the series are provided with an extensive critical apparatus and extra reading material, including a section of photographs and notes. The texts are based on the most authoritative edition (or collated from the most authoritative editions or manuscripts) and edited using a fresh, intelligent editorial approach. With an emphasis on the production, editorial and typographical values of a book, Alma Classics aspires to revitalize the whole experience of reading the classics.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57490123161973,"sku":"9781847499370","price":7.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781847499370.jpg?v=1786442012"},{"product_id":"royal-highness","title":"Royal Highness","description":"THE BOOK: One of Thomas Mann's most delightful stories, Royal Highness is richly resonant with may of his themes and symbols. His careful depiction of a decaying, stratified society rejuvenated by modern forces illustrates in fable what he regarded as a universal truth - that ripeness and death are a necessary condition of rebirth.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57490254758261,"sku":"9780749386825","price":15.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780749386825.jpg?v=1786442140"},{"product_id":"death-in-venice-2","title":"Death In Venice","description":"Death in Venice written by Thomas Mann, is a novella that delves into the psychological and existential themes of desire, decay, and the pursuit of beauty. Set in Venice during the early 20th century, the story follows Gustav von Aschenbach, a renowned writer in his late fifties. Aschenbach becomes infatuated with the ethereal beauty of a young Polish boy named Tadzio, whom he encounters at his hotel. Through vivid descriptions and introspective passages, Mann explores the tensions between art and life, control and abandon, and the interplay between rationality and irrationality. The city of Venice itself serves as a metaphorical backdrop, embodying both allure and decay, as Aschenbach's fascination unfolds against the backdrop of an impending cholera epidemic. The story is a profound examination of the complexities of human desire, the pursuit of beauty, and the inherent fragility of existence, leaving readers contemplating the depths of their own desires and the consequences of their pursuit.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57495577493877,"sku":"9789358592221","price":11.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9789358592221.jpg?v=1786618257"},{"product_id":"mario-and-the-magician-and-other-late-stories","title":"Mario and the Magician and Other Late Stories","description":"\"A horrific end, a thoroughly dire end. And yet a liberating end nonetheless — I could not help but feel that, and still do!\"Thomas Mann's later short stories published between 1925 and 1953 explore his abiding interest in human nature and his surroundings. Disorder and Early Sorrow and Mario and the Magician originate from Mann's own experiences: domestic life at the height of inflation under the early Weimar Republic; and a symbolic encounter with Fascism during an Italian holiday. The Transposed Heads: An Indian Legend is tongue-in-cheek legend set in ancient times and The Law is a subtly ironic narrative about Moses and the Ten Commandments, after which Mann returns to 1920s Germany with The Black Swan, a story of an aging woman's passion for a young American, confronting the taboo subject of cancer. The stories illustrate Mann's progression from domestic realism to an elaborate 'late style' with mythic overtones. This collection shows the continuing literary development of one of Europe's most important writers.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57499360166261,"sku":"9780198852223","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780198852223.jpg?v=1786694667"},{"product_id":"the-magic-mountain","title":"The Magic Mountain","description":"Thomas Mann’s supreme achievement, The Magic Mountain is a novel of astonishing philosophical complexity and formal brilliance. Sometimes forgotten is that it is also, at its heart, an emotionally resonant fairy-tale. Its guileless hero, a “simple young fellow” named Hans Castorp, travels to a snowbound Swiss sanatorium where an eclectic cast of characters spends their days dining, reclining, and debating ideas as Europe marches steadily toward World War?I. Employing a remarkable self-imposed constraint of using only English words that mean now what they meant in Mann’s era, award-winning and best-selling translator Susan Bernofsky gives us not only a biting, mordantly funny philosophical satire, but also a charming tale of one man’s coming-of-age. This is the version of The Magic Mountain that can justifiably claim, in Bernofsky’s own words, to be “the fairy-tale one”—a translation that is simultaneously for our time and timeless.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57573177950581,"sku":"9780393292053","price":33.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-thomas-mann.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}