MANN (Thomas).

Death in Venice. Paris, Éditions du Sagittaire, 1925. In-16 square, half havana morocco with corners, spine decorated with cold boxes, gilt head, cover and spine (Devauchelle). First edition of the first French translation, by Félix Bertaux and Charles Sigwalt. One of the 50 first copies on japon, the only large paper before 950 vellum of Rives. Of this short novel published in German in 1912, Thomas Mann said, during an interview with Luchino Visconti in 1951: "The story is essentially a story of death, death considered as a force of seduction and immortality, a story about the desire for death. However, the problem that interested me most was that of the ambiguity of the artist, the tragedy of mastering his Art. Passion as disorder and degradation was the real subject of my fiction." Twenty years after this conversation, Visconti directed the masterpiece of the seventh art that we know by adapting the novel by Thomas Mann. A very fine copy carefully established by the Devauchelle workshop. From the Raoul Simonson library (2013, II, n°570), with bookplate. Slight crack on one of the spines.