Letters of Thomas Mann 1889-1955 [antikvár]

PREFACE This collection x»f the letters of Thomas Mann is based on the three volumes of German Briefe edited by the late Erika Mann and published by S. Fischer Verlag between 1962 and 1965. Although Erika Mann in no way attempted to influence the translators' selections, it should be clearly understood that her work alone made the present edition possible. The problems she faced, and the judgment with which she mastered them, can be fully appreciated only by those who have looked into the vast correspondence deposited in the Thomas Mann Archives in Zurich, and in various other public and private collections. The present edition has been selected by the editors from the hardcover book first published in 1971. In the German edition, the long span of years between 1889 and 1936 is covered by the first volume, which contains approximately one third of the total number of letters. The remaining two thirds derive from the last years of Mann's life. This disproportion is reflected in the translation. Partly it is due to the natural circumstance that more recent letters have greater chances of survival, partly to the immense increase in Mann's correspondence during his later years. But certain unnatural circumstances rooted in the history of the times account for the disappearance of a large number of the letters that Mann wrote before 1953. The saddest lack is the almost total loss of his letters to his wife from the years 1904 to 1933. These vanished, along with many of his early manuscripts, in the following way. On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. On February 11, 1933, Mann set out on a lecture tour, and because this Vll