Mephisto

272 Pages·1977·5.359 MB·English

by  Klaus Mann, Robin Smyth

Mephisto

Klaus Mann
Translated from the German by Robin Smyth
Random House New York
Copyright © 1977 by Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York, and
simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Mann, Klaus, 1906-1949.
Mephisto.
I. Tide.
PZs.M3i68Me8 [PT2625.A435] 833*.9'i2 77-5964
ISBN 0-394-41654-6
Manufactured in the United States of America
24689753
First Edition
Publisher s Note
Mephisto, written in 1936, was the third novel that Klaus Mann-
Thomas Mann’s son—wrote while living in exile from the Germany
of World War II. He wrote this satirical and political novel as the
thinly veiled portrait of his former brother-in-law, the actor Gustaf
Gründgens. Gründgens, who had been married to Mann’s favorite
sister, Erika, and had once been a flamboyant champion of Commu­
nism, had a magnificent career in Nazi Germany under the auspices of
Field Marshal Hermann Göring. Göring, influenced by his actress­
wife Emmy Sonnemann, gave Gründgens, who was already in dis­
grace because of his questionable past, another chance. Gründgens
chose the role of Mephistopheles in Faust, and Göring was completely
bewitched by his breathtaking display of depravity. He appointed him
director of the State Theater, and Gründgens became the leader of
theatrical life in the Third Reich. Mann wrote Mephisto to “analyze
the abject type of treacherous intellectual who prostitutes his talent
for the sake of some tawdry fame and transitory wealth.”
Originally published in Amsterdam, Mephisto has been published
in Austria, Switzerland, Yugoslavia and, most recently, France. It was
published in Germany in the late fifties, only to be met by the longest
lawsuit in the history of German publishing. The suit, brought by
Gründgens’ adopted son, dragged on for ten years, until the Supreme
Court of Germany banned the book in a five-to-four decision.
This edition marks the first appearance of Mephisto in English.

AU men's failings I forgive in actors;
no actor’s failings will I forgive in men.
—Goethe, Wilhelm Meister

Mephisto