The Later Stories

This volume collects Thomas Mann's last five novellas: Unord­nung und frühes Leid (Disorderly World and Childhood Woes, 1925), Mario und der Zauberer (Mario and the Magician, 1930), Die vertauschten Köpfe (The Switched Heads, 1940), Das Gesetz (The Tables of the Law, 1943), and Die Betrogene (A Woman Deceived, 1953). While not as well known as Mann's earlier stories, the work collected here represents some of his greatest achievements in shorter fiction. Disorderly World and Childhood Woes is a subtle narrative of impossible longing told with wit and irony. Mario and the Magician, a brilliant analysis of the relationship between a fascist demagogue and his audience, is arguably one of the most important texts Mann ever wrote. The Switched Heads, a story based on an Indian legend, sums up in a playful way Mann's thoughts on the relationship between love and sensuality. The Tables of the Law is a darkly comic retelling of the story of Moses. Mann's last completed work, the tragicomic A Woman Deceived (sometimes translated as The Black Swan), is a subtle and moving novella that deserves greater attention. This edition presents brand-new translations, conveying the intellectual ambition and elegant humour of Mann's work, and rendering the architectural and musical qualities of Mann's sentences with eloquence and sensitivity. The translations are accompanied by a critical introduction and explanatory notes.