Thomas Mann Diaries

Thomas Mann kept informal diaries from adolescence until just before his death in 1955. These diaries have been selected from volumes published in Germany. They cover the years 1918 - 1939 and chronicle Mann's growing international reputation as a novelist and his reluctant emergence as the focus of intellectual opposition to Hitler abroad. It was the period of Mann's greatest creative endeavour, producing "The Magic Mountain", "Death in Venice" and much of "Doctor Faustus." A record of a great humanist's reactions to the darkest chapter of European civilization, the diaries are also an extraordinary revelation of Mann's intimate family life.