Books

Berlin: S. Fischer, Verlag, 1913. First trade edition of one of the greatest novellas of the twentieth century. Octavo, original publisher's quarter vellum over marbled boards. Association copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "An Ernst Bertram in herzlicher Wertschatzung Thomas Mann" (To Ernst Bertram in heartfelt appreciation Thomas Mann). One of the best possible association copies, as Bertram was Mann's closest friend from the late 1900s through the 1930s, when their politics separated them. Bertram was deeply influential on Mann's thinking and literary direction during the time when he was somewhat artistically lost and suffered his own writer's block. It was also in nearly daily conversation with Bertram that the long political confessional, Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen (Reflections of an Unpolitical Man) was born. Bertram was a constant visitor at the Mann's, and it is evident that there was some quotient of homoerotic attraction to the relationship.…

Death in Venice is a novella that explores the complexities of art, youth, and desire through the experiences of a distinguished author who becomes infatuated with a beautiful boy in Venice.