Fjodor M. Dostojewskij Book order (chronological)

Ein Pfandleiher lässt sich dazu herab, ein junges Mädchen aus überaus ärmlichen Verhältnissen zu heiraten. Er erwartet Dankbarkeit und Unterordnung von seiner Frau, begegnet ihr aber seinerseits nur mit Strenge und Schweigen. Über seinem Stolz bemerkt er nicht, wie er sie immer mehr verliert ...

Famous for his novels, Thomas Mann is more accessible through the shorter fictions which span his entire career. The most famous of these stories is one of the earliest. Death in Venice was made into the celebrated Visconti film, but all his mature preoccupations are present in this story: the need for a sense of meaning in existence, the relationship between life and art, the central role of sexual energy and the strange forms it can take, the place of death and disease, the importance of work, the individual's complex relations with his society and the dominant culture. These themes are developed in a series of brilliant stories, may of them very short and displaying the author's talent for macabre comedy. Dr Faustus and Buddenbrooks are already available in Everyman