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- Herausgeber: via tolino media
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
Diese 1897 veröffentlichte Novelle markiert das literarische Debüt von Thomas Mann. Sie enthält bereits die ersten Ansätze der großen Themen, die sein gesamtes Werk durchziehen werden: die selbstgewählte Einsamkeit, den Konflikt zwischen Begehren und Verzicht und die Verletzlichkeit der Seele angesichts der Leidenschaft. Es ist die Geschichte eines jungen, verwaisten, zerbrechlichen und behinderten Mannes, der sich aus der Welt zurückgezogen hat und in der Isolation ein prekäres Gleichgewicht findet. Die Ankunft einer jungen verheirateten Frau, schön, unnahbar, einsam und souverän, bringt seinen Rückzug aus der Welt durcheinander und offenbart die Schwächen eines Lebens, das von Gefühlen ferngehalten wird. Dieses Werk, das dem französischsprachigen Publikum noch wenig bekannt ist, verdient es, wegen seiner Ausdruckskraft und der erstaunlichen Reife seines damals 22-jährigen Autors wiederentdeckt zu werden. Es zeugt bereits von der psychologischen Tiefe und der sorgfältigen Erzählstruktur, die Thomas Mann zu einem der großen Namen der Weltliteratur machen werden.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2026
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Title Page
The Little Gentleman Friedemann
-
Bilingual Edition
A short story byThomas Mann
Original title:
Der Kleine Herr Friedemann
Translated from German byAdèle Liechtenstein
With :
An original preface
By Adèle Liechtenstein
An original biography
By Adèle Liechtenstein
Preface to the Bilingual Edition
Published in 1897, this short story marks the literary beginnings of Thomas Mann. It already contains the seeds of the major themes that would run through his entire body of work: chosen solitude, the conflict between desire and renunciation, and the vulnerability of the soul in the face of passion.
It is the tale of a fragile man, withdrawn from the world, who finds in isolation a precarious balance. The arrival of a young married woman - beautiful, unattainable, solitary, and sovereign - shatters his retreat and exposes the flaws of a life kept at a distance from emotion.
Still little known to the French-speaking public, this work deserves to be rediscovered for its evocative power and the astonishing maturity of its author, then only twenty-two years old. It already reveals the psychological depth and meticulous narrative construction that would make Thomas Mann one of the great names in world literature.
This bilingual edition, available in both digital and print formats, adopts a spacious and open layout, specially designed to provide readers with generous room for their personal notes.
Biography of Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann, born on June 6, 1875 in Lübeck, is one of the most significant writers of the twentieth century. Coming from a prosperous bourgeois family, his destiny was shaken by the premature death of his father in 1891, an event that led him to abandon the world of commerce and devote himself to writing. His literary beginnings were marked by the novella The Little Herr Friedemann (Der kleine Herr Friedemann), published in 1896, which tells the tragic story of a deformed and solitary man, humiliated by a passionate love. Already in this work, we find the themes that would permeate his entire oeuvre: solitude, the fragility of the individual, and the tension between desire and renunciation.
Success came in 1901 with Buddenbrooks, a vast family saga depicting the decline of a bourgeois dynasty in Lübeck. This novel, which earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929 (awarded for his entire body of work, but largely thanks to this book), established Mann as one of the major writers of his time. Other landmark works followed, such as Tonio Kröger, Death in Venice, and The Magic Mountain - meditations on beauty, illness, time, and the crisis of European ideals. Mann became an essential intellectual figure, able to combine psychological introspection with political reflection.
Confronted with the rise of Nazism, Thomas Mann, who was traveling in Switzerland at the time of Hitler’s seizure of power in early 1933, chose not to return to Germany. He settled in Küsnacht, in the canton of Zurich, and later went into exile again in the United States in 1938.
His essays and speeches denounced totalitarianism and defended European culture. He authored several major radio addresses to Germany beginning in 1940, in which he openly condemned Nazism and urged his compatriots to resist barbarism. In Doktor Faustus, published in 1947, he transposed the tragedy of twentieth‑century Germany into the life of a fictional composer, Adrian Leverkühn, whose cursed fate symbolized the spiritual corruption of an entire nation. Until the end of his life, he remained a respected moral voice throughout the world.
Thomas Mann died on August 12, 1955 in Zurich, at the age of 80, in a clinic where he had been hospitalized. He was buried in the Kilchberg cemetery on the shores of Lake Zurich. His grave, sober and elegant, has become a place of literary remembrance. Mann had chosen to remain tied to Switzerland, the country that had welcomed him in the 1930s and where he had found refuge from Nazism.
His legacy is immense. His works have been translated into dozens of languages and continue to influence writers, philosophers, and readers. His style is characterized by intellectual rigor, psychological depth, and a critical humanism. He succeeded in uniting classical narration with modern philosophical reflection, and his great novels such as Buddenbrooks, The Magic Mountain, or Doktor Faustus, as well as his novellas like The Little Herr Friedemann and Death in Venice, embody the tension between the individual and history, between beauty and decay, between art and politics.
Major Novels and Tetralogy
Buddenbrooks. The Decline of a Family (Buddenbrooks. Verfall einer Familie): 1901
Royal Highness (Königliche Hoheit): 1909
The Magic Mountain (Der Zauberberg): 1924
Joseph and His Brothers (Joseph und seine Brüder): 1933–1943 (Tetralogy in four volumes)
Lotte in Weimar (Charlotte à Weimar): 1939
Doktor Faustus: 1947
The Holy Sinner (Der Erwählte): 1951
Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man (Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull): 1954 (unfinished)
Famous Novellas and Short Stories
The Little Gentleman Friedemann (Der kleine Herr Friedemann): 1896
The Clown (Der Bajazzo): 1897
Tonio Kröger: 1903
Tristan: 1903
The Prodigy (Das Wunderkind): 1904
Death in Venice (Der Tod in Venedig): 1912
Disorder and Early Sorrow (Unordnung und frühes Leid): 1926
Mario and the Magician (Mario und der Zauberer): 1930
The LittleGentleman Friedemann
-
Bilingual Edition
A short story byThomas Mann
Original title:
Der Kleine Herr Friedemann
Translated from German byAdèle Liechtenstein
I-a-DE
Die Amme hatte die Schuld. – Was half es, dass, als der erste Verdacht entstand, Frau Konsul Friedemann ihr ernstlich zuredete, solches Laster zu unterdrücken? Was half es, dass sie ihr ausser dem nahrhaften Bier ein Glas Rotwein täglich verabreichte? Es stellte sich plötzlich heraus, dass dieses Mädchen sich herbeiliess, auch noch den Spiritus zu trinken, der für den Kochapparat verwendet werden sollte, und ehe Ersatz für sie eingetroffen war, ehe man sie hatte fortschicken können, war das Unglück geschehen. Als die Mutter und ihre drei halbwüchsigen Töchter eines Tages von einem Ausgange zurückkehrten, lag der kleine, etwa einen Monat alte Johannes, vom Wickeltische gestürzt, mit einem entsetzlich leisen Wimmern am Boden, während die Amme stumpfsinnig daneben stand.
Der Arzt, der mit einer behutsamen Festigkeit die Glieder des gekrümmten und zuckenden kleinen Wesens prüfte, machte ein sehr, sehr ernstes Gesicht, die drei Töchter standen schluchzend in einem Winkel, und Frau Friedemann in ihrer Herzensangst betete laut.
I-a-EN
The nurse was to blame. What good did it do that, when the first suspicion arose, Mrs. Consul Friedemann earnestly urged her to suppress such a vice? What good did it do that, in addition to the nourishing beer, she gave her a glass of red wine every day? It suddenly turned out that this girl had also been drinking the denatured alcohol intended for the cooking apparatus, and before a replacement could be found for her, before she could be sent away, the disaster had already occurred. One day, when the mother and her three teenage daughters returned from an outing, little Johannes, about a month old, was lying on the floor, having fallen from the changing table, making a horribly faint whimpering sound, while the nurse stood motionless beside him.
The doctor, examining the limbs of the little, bent and twitching creature with careful firmness, wore a very, very serious expression. The three daughters were sobbing in a corner, while Mrs. Friedemann, filled with deep fear, prayed aloud.
I-b-DE
Die arme Frau hatte es noch vor der Geburt des Kindes erleben müssen, dass ihr Gatte, der niederländische Konsul, von einer ebenso plötzlichen wie heftigen Krankheit dahingerafft wurde, und sie war noch zu gebrochen, um überhaupt der Hoffnung fähig zu sein, der kleine Johannes möchte ihr erhalten bleiben. Allein nach zwei Tagen erklärte ihr der Arzt mit einem ermutigenden Händedruck, eine unmittelbare Gefahr sei schlechterdings nicht mehr vorhanden, die leichte Gehirnaffektion, vor allem, sei gänzlich gehoben, was man schon an dem Blicke sehen könne, der durchaus nicht mehr den stieren Ausdruck zeige wie anfangs ... Freilich müsse man abwarten, wie im übrigen sich die Sache entwickeln werde – und das Beste hoffen, wie gesagt, das Beste hoffen ...
I-b-EN
The poor woman had had to endure, even before the birth of her child, the sudden and violent death of her husband, the Dutch consul, who was taken by a disease as swift as it was fierce. She was still too broken to even hope, even for a moment, that little Johannes would be spared to her. But two days later, the doctor reassured her with a comforting handshake, stating that there was absolutely no immediate danger left. The slight brain condition, in particular, had been completely overcome, which could already be seen in the look, one that no longer bore the blank expression it had in the beginning... Of course, they would have to wait to see how things would develop in other respects. And hope for the best, as he had said, simply hope for the best...
II-a-DE
Das graue Giebelhaus, in dem Johannes Friedemann aufwuchs, lag am nördlichen Thore der alten, kaum mittelgrossen Handelsstadt. Durch die Hausthür betrat man eine geräumige, mit Steinfliesen versehene Diele, von der eine Treppe mit weissgemaltem Holzgeländer in die Etagen hinaufführte. Die Tapeten des Wohnzimmers im ersten Stock zeigten verblichene Landschaften, und um den schweren Mahagoni-Tisch mit der dunkelroten Plüschdecke standen steiflehnige Möbel.
Hier sass er oft in seiner Kindheit am Fenster, vor dem stets schöne Blumen prangten, auf einem kleinen Schemel zu den Füssen seiner Mutter und lauschte etwa, während er ihren glatten, grauen Scheitel und ihr gutes, sanftmütiges Gesicht betrachtete und den leisen Duft atmete, der immer von ihr ausging, auf eine wundervolle Geschichte. Oder er liess sich vielleicht das Bild des Vaters zeigen, eines freundlichen Herrn mit grauem Backenbart. Er befand sich im Himmel, sagte die Mutter, und erwartete dort sie alle.
II-a-EN
The gray gabled house in which Johannes Friedemann grew up stood by the northern gate of the old trading town, which was scarcely of medium size. Through the front door one entered a spacious hall paved with stone tiles, from which a staircase with a white-painted wooden banister led up to the upper floors. The wallpaper in the living room on the first floor showed faded landscapes, and around the heavy mahogany table with the dark red plush cover stood stiff-backed furniture.
Here he often sat as a child by the window, before which beautiful flowers always blossomed, on a little stool at his mother’s feet, listening as he looked at her smooth, gray parting and her good, gentle face, breathing in the faint fragrance that always emanated from her, to a wonderful story. Or he would perhaps ask to see the picture of his father, a kindly gentleman with gray side-whiskers. He was in heaven, his mother said, and was waiting there for all of them.
