[Proposed production] Thomas Mann - Short Fiction

[Robin Whittleton]

I’ve been putting together a spreadsheet of Thomas Mann’s short fiction, and I think I’m ready to start production. All in all there are 14 stories to bring together currently, totalling around 182k words.

Basically this brings together the contents of:

• “Death in Venice” (and “Tristan” / “Tonio Kröger”), translated by Kenneth Burke (1925). Scans on archive.org and PG has a transcription of just Death in Venice, so the other two will need to be transcribed.
• “Bashan and I” (already on SE), translated by Herman George Scheffauer (1923)
• “Mario and the Magician”, translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter (1930). Scans at https://hdl.handle.net/2027/inu.32000003235852 and transcription from a Faded Page collection.
• 9 more shorts from a collection called Children and Fools, translated by Herman George Scheffauer (1928). This previously didn’t exist as a scan online but I bought a copy, scanned it, and uploaded it to archive.org at https://archive.org/details/thomas-mann-children-and-fools/. These will need transcription.

So I think this’ll make a nice collection. Most of the rest of his short work will arrive in 1936 with the H. T. Lowe-Porter book. Not sure about cover art yet: there’s a lovely Max Oppenheimer portrait of Mann but zero PD proof available so I’ll have to find something else.

I suppose the biggest question before I start will be whether we want to absorb “Bashan and I” into this collection? It’s 38k words, so just on the cusp of a standalone novel. Next biggest is “Death in Venice” at ~28k.

-Robin

[Robin Whittleton]

There was a cover art I wanted but couldn’t find proof for, but after a bit more digging I unearthed a 1915 scan. Mann bought this in 1914 and it hung in his study for the rest of his life. https://standardebooks.org/artworks/ludwig-von-hofmann/die-quelle

-Robin

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[Alex Cabal]

OK, great. Yes, we can include Bashan and I. Send a repo once you get
started. This will be a "various translators" project. Also note that
Mario and the Magician is in the Encyclopædia Britannica’s Gateway to
the Great Books set so make sure to include that metadata. See Poe's
short fiction for a refresher on how to structure that given the new
schema: formatting.

On 8/7/26 4:28 PM, Robin Whittleton wrote:
> I’ve been putting together a spreadsheet of Thomas Mann’s short fiction

> <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/
> d/1StHUVULoicxpIUiPpmCJ_W1R5EiTLTXp4I5DDN15Bjg/>, and I think I’m ready

> to start production. All in all there are 14 stories to bring together
> currently, totalling around 182k words.
>
> Basically this brings together the contents of:
>

> * “Death in Venice” (and “Tristan” / “Tonio Kröger”), translated by
> Kenneth Burke (1925). Scans on archive.org <https://archive.org/
> details/deathinvenice0000thom_f9a3> and PG has a transcription of
> just Death in Venice <https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66073>, so

> the other two will need to be transcribed.

> * “Bashan and I” (already on SE <https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/
> thomas-mann/bashan-and-i/herman-george-scheffauer>), translated

> by Herman George Scheffauer (1923)

> * “Mario and the Magician”, translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter (1930).
> Scans at https://hdl.handle.net/2027/inu.32000003235852 <https://
> hdl.handle.net/2027/inu.32000003235852> and transcription from a
> Faded Page collection <https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?
> pid=20210546>.
> * 9 more shorts from a collection called /Children and Fools/,

> translated by Herman George Scheffauer (1928). This previously
> didn’t exist as a scan online but I bought a copy, scanned it, and

> uploaded it to archive.org <http://archive.org> at https://
> archive.org/details/thomas-mann-children-and-fools <https://
> archive.org/details/thomas-mann-children-and-fools>/. These will

> need transcription.
>
>
> So I think this’ll make a nice collection. Most of the rest of his short
> work will arrive in 1936 with the H. T. Lowe-Porter book. Not sure about
> cover art yet: there’s a lovely Max Oppenheimer portrait of Mann

> <https://sammlung.wienmuseum.at/objekt/160-thomas-mann/> but zero PD

> proof available so I’ll have to find something else.
>
> I suppose the biggest question before I start will be whether we want to
> absorb “Bashan and I” into this collection? It’s 38k words, so just on
> the cusp of a standalone novel. Next biggest is “Death in Venice” at ~28k.
>
> -Robin
>

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[Robin Whittleton]

Github URL: https://github.com/robinwhittleton/thomas-mann_short-fiction_various-translators

One more question: we’ve got a placeholder for the Lowe-Porter translation of “Death in Venice”, as it’s in the Great Books of the Western World collection. I’d selected the earlier Burke translation partially because it’s transcribed on Gutenberg and partially because of this article that suggests that the Lowe-Porter translation downplayed the sexuality and that W. H. Auden preferred Burke. Looking at the Wikipedia page, there’s some even more strident criticism of the Lowe-Porter translations. So I assume we want to go with Burke, but do we just leave the placeholder up?

-Robin

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[Anthony J. Bentley]

On 2026-08-09 00:09, Robin Whittleton wrote:
> One more question: we’ve got a placeholder for the Lowe-Porter

> translation of “Death in Venice” [1], as it’s in the Great Books

> of the Western World collection. I’d selected the earlier Burke

> translation partially because it’s transcribed on Gutenberg [2] and
> partially because of this article [3] that suggests that the

> Lowe-Porter translation downplayed the sexuality and that W. H. Auden

> preferred Burke. Looking at the Wikipedia page [4], there’s some

> even more strident criticism of the Lowe-Porter translations. So I
> assume we want to go with Burke, but do we just leave the placeholder
> up?

Britannica selected works for GBotWW primarily based on the reputation
and impact of the books, not of the translations. For example, my
understanding is in some cases Britannica knowingly chose inferior
translations simply because licensing better ones would have been
cost-prohibitive. That’s probably not the case here. But I think when a
translated work has been produced, SE’s collections should (and probably
already do in places) list the translation available on SE rather than a
placeholder for a translation that will never be produced. Such a
placeholder should be deleted.

[Alex Cabal]

That's fine, you can select whichever translation you think is best.
Once the omnibus is released the placeholder will be deleted anyway,
since any references to the short story will point to the omnibus. Just
make a list of all existing placeholder works of that nature so once we
release, we can do that.

Weijia will manage with Vince reviewing.

On 8/9/26 2:09 AM, Robin Whittleton wrote:
> Github URL: https://github.com/robinwhittleton/thomas-mann_short-
> fiction_various-translators <https://github.com/robinwhittleton/thomas-
> mann_short-fiction_various-translators>

>
> One more question: we’ve got a placeholder for the Lowe-Porter

> translation of “Death in Venice” <https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/
> thomas-mann/death-in-venice/h-t-lowe-porter>, as it’s in the Great Books

> of the Western World collection. I’d selected the earlier Burke

> translation partially because it’s transcribed on Gutenberg <https://
> www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66073> and partially because of this article
> <https://www.editoreric.com/greatlit/books/Death-in-Venice-
> translations.html> that suggests that the Lowe-Porter translation

> downplayed the sexuality and that W. H. Auden preferred Burke. Looking

> at the Wikipedia page <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
> Death_in_Venice#English_translations>, there’s some even more strident

> standardebooks/4E398C4E-D39A-4FC7-A32C-5A78CEC02906%40reala.net
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/4E398C4E-D39A-4FC7-
> A32C-5A78CEC02906%40reala.net?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[Alex Cabal]

Actually never mind, you don't have to keep a list, just let me know as
you find them and I can delete them immediately.

On 8/9/26 2:09 AM, Robin Whittleton wrote:
> Github URL: https://github.com/robinwhittleton/thomas-mann_short-
> fiction_various-translators <https://github.com/robinwhittleton/thomas-
> mann_short-fiction_various-translators>
>

> One more question: we’ve got a placeholder for the Lowe-Porter

> translation of “Death in Venice” <https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/
> thomas-mann/death-in-venice/h-t-lowe-porter>, as it’s in the Great Books

> of the Western World collection. I’d selected the earlier Burke

> translation partially because it’s transcribed on Gutenberg <https://
> www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66073> and partially because of this article
> <https://www.editoreric.com/greatlit/books/Death-in-Venice-
> translations.html> that suggests that the Lowe-Porter translation

> downplayed the sexuality and that W. H. Auden preferred Burke. Looking

> at the Wikipedia page <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

> Death_in_Venice#English_translations>, there’s some even more strident

[Weijia Cheng]

Ok, noted!