Thomas Mann: The Making of an Artist, 1875-1911, From His Childhood to the Writing of Death in Venice

vi, 325 pp. "Winston has related the materials of biography--events, people, documentation--to Mann's writing in a way that gives us a glimpse of the creation of literary characters, almost through Mann's own eyes."--Peter Gay in The New York Times "A magnificently rich and complete portrait of Thomas Mann, the author of Buddenbrooks and The Magic Mountain, that takes us from his tempestuous youth through the years of early brilliance that shaped his art, to 1911 and the creation of Death in Venice. Based on ten years of research of all the source material available, including Mann's private diaries, Richard Winston gives us a brilliantly persuasive literary and psychological study of this artist of genius at work."