MANN, Thomas, German writer of novels and short stories: b. Lilbeck, 6 June 1875, of a wealthy family of merchants, whose tradi tions of solidity and solvency surrounded him in his youth and gave him the material for his treatment of the family life of the Hanseatic patricians in 'Buddenbrooks) and other works. After his father's death (1893) the family settled in Munich, where Mann joined them later (1894), and where he became an appren tice in the offices of the South German Fire Assurance Bank, a position of which he soon wearied. He attended lectures on msthetics and literature at the University of Munich, later lived at Rome, returning to Munich in order to join (1899) the staff of Simp/icissimus (Q.v.), to which he remained attached for a number of years. Mann has a delicacy and refinement of style and observation that are unparalleled in German literature. In his only long novd. 'Buddenbrooks) (1901), which established to literary reputation, as well as in his short stone. he captivates by a psychologic naturalism which is enhanced by the fact that the feelings de picted are those of well-to-do middle class persons in comfortable, if not luxuriant, sur roundings. Henry James, whose attention is
usually devoted to a higher social class, is the English novelist whom Mann's delicate and in treatment most resembles, and the two men are also similar in their scrupulous precision and artistry of language. 'Der Tod in Venedig> ('A, Death in Venice,' 1913), which has the proportions of a German novelle, (about 100 pages), describes the last hours of an elderly German writer, who, during a so journ in Venice at a time when that city is visited by a plague, discovers abysses of his sexual life which he has hitherto not suspected, and is carried off by the plague before he is fully ready to accept the implications of his new-found knowledge. Mann's other works in clude short stories: 'Der kleine Herr Friede mann) (1898); 'Tristan' (six short stories, 1903); (Fiorenza) (drama, 1906) ; 'Base and ich> (1906) ; Hoheit> (novel, 1909).