Thomas Mann

royal-highness

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more

source_10558

By signing up, I confirm that I'm over 16. To find out what personal data we collect and how we use it, please visit our <a href="/company/about-us/notices/privacy-policy/">Privacy Policy</a>

Keep an eye out for a confirmation in your inbox

Stories, ideas and giveaways to help you spark young imaginations

source_10972

The latest books, activities and tips to help you grow little readers

source_10975

About us

About Us (Header 4)

john-le-carre-a-legacy-of-spies-960-2.jpg

Margaret Atwood

Richard Osman

Malorie Blackman

George Orwell

marian_keyes_mobile_320x200px.png

Elif Shafak

shonfaye

Authors (Header 3)

Books (Header 2)

Company

Features (Header 1)

Penguin Shop (Header 5)

Useful links

Confessions Of Felix Krull

Lotte In Weimar

Buddenbrooks

Doctor Faustus

& other stories

Mario and the Magician

The Magic Mountain

Death In Venice

Death in Venice And Other Stories

Joseph and His Brothers

Collected Stories

Little Herr Friedmann And Other Stories

The Decline of a Family

Royal Highness

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.

KEY POINTS: * Mann is a giant figure in 20th Century litrature and a Nobel Prize Winner. * Has been core Peguin backlist for years- now reverting to Minerva. * Brilliant new Mann packinging. * A superb new addition to the core Minerva 20th century classics.

Thomas Mann was born in 1875 in the ancient Hanseatic town of Lübeck, of a line of prosperous and influential merchants. His father, head of the ancestral firm, had also been a senator and twice mayor of the free city; his mother was of Germanic-Creole heritage. Brought up in the company of five brothers and sisters, Mann completed his education under the discipline of north German schoolmasters and entered an insurance office in Munich at the age of nineteen. During this time he secretly wrote his first tale, Fallen, and shortly afterwards left the insurance office to study art and literature at the University of Munich. Then, after spending a year in Rome, he devoted himself exclusively to writing. 
 
He was only twenty-five when Buddenbrooks, his first major novel, was published. Before it was banned and burned by Hitler, it had sold over a million copies in Germany alone. His second great novel, The Magic Mountain, was published in 1924 after twelve years of labour. In 1926 the chance request of a Munich artist for an introduction to a portfolio of Joseph drawings was the genesis of the tetraolgy Joseph and his Brothers, the first volume of which was published in 1933. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1929. 
 
In 1933 Thomas Mann left Germany to live for a time in Switzerland. Then, after several previous visits, in 1938 he settled in the United States, living first in Princetown, New Jersey, and later in California, where he wrote Doctor Faustus and The Holy Sinner. Among the honours he received in the U.S.A. was his appointment as a Fellow of the Library of Congress. He revisited his native country in 1949 and returned to Switzerland in 1952, where The Black Swan and Confessions of Felix Krull were written, and where he died in 1955.

Royal Highness

Select a format:

Retailers:

Summary

About the author

Thomas Mann

More from this Author

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter