Doctor Faustus
Thomas Mann's last great novel, first published in 1947 and now rendered into English by acclaimed translator John E. Woods, is a modern reworking of the Faust legend, in which Germany sells its soul to the Devil. Mann's protagonist, the composer Adrian Leverkühn, is the flower of German culture, a brilliant, isolated, overreaching figure, his radical new music a breakneck game played by art at the very edge of impossibility. In return for twenty-four years of unparalleled musical accomplishment, he bargains away his soul - and the ability to love his fellow man.
Leverkühn's life... more
Leverkühn's life... more
Reviews and Recommendations
We've comprehensively compiled reviews of Doctor Faustus from the world's leading experts.
Michael Fried I almost surprised myself when I included this. But it’s a book I love. Writing during World War Two, Mann reflects on modernism in the arts, the tragic history of modern Germany and the persistence of Nietzsche in the German imagination. It’s a work of extraordinary intellectual seriousness and ambition. (Source)
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