Death in Venice

by Kenneth Burke, Moncreiffe Press, Thomas Mann · 1912

Thomas Mann’s haunting novella follows Gustav von Aschenbach, a celebrated author in his early fifties, who flees a creative crisis and travels to Venice in search of renewal. Settling into the Grand Hotel des Bains on the Lido, he becomes transfixed by Tadzio, an exquisitely beautiful adolescent boy staying with his family. What begins as an artist’s appreciation of pure beauty slowly curdles into an all-consuming obsession that strips away Aschenbach’s dignity, composure, and hard-won self-control. As the city swelters under a plague-ridden, oppressive heat, his infatuation draws him ever deeper into a private ruin he can neither resist nor acknowledge. A masterful study of desire, decay, and the perilous intersection of art and life, Death in Venice captures the tragic intensity of inner torment with devastating precision. This edition includes an exclusive introduction by Colm Tóibín and an excerpt from his novel The Magician.