Mann, Thomas. (1875-1955). Signed Letter - REVIEWING A BANNED BOOK BY EDMUND WILSON. Typed manuscript signed ("Thomas Mann"), 1 page, on personal letterhead, 10 7/8 x 7 in., Pacific Palisades, California, August 22, 1946. With one word correction in Mann's hand. Signature faded. Mann defends Memoirs of Hecate County against its suppression. "A novel by so literary an author as Mr. Edmund Wilson is obviously not meant for mass-consumption but for a circle of readers spiritually equipped to cope with its contents. Curiously, it is often works of artistic value that are being suppressed, whereas more popular products, fit to contribute to the brutalisation of the masses remain uncontested. The virtuous lust for suppression constitutes a feature of world fascism which - it is to be hoped - has not yet taken sufficient root in this country to determine the course of its intellectual life."
Mann (1875-1955) won the Nobel Prize for Literature (1924) after publishing The Magic Mountain. He was one of many German writers and intellectuals who left Germany when Hitler came to power, fleeing to Switzerland in 1933, and when the war began in 1939, moving to the U.S. He lived there until 1952, when he returned to Switzerland. American writer and literary critic Edmund Wilson's (1895-1972) Memoirs of Hecate County was first published in 1946, but was banned in the United States until 1959.
Mann (1875-1955) won the Nobel Prize for Literature (1924) after publishing The Magic Mountain. He was one of many German writers and intellectuals who left Germany when Hitler came to power, fleeing to Switzerland in 1933, and when the war began in 1939, moving to the U.S. He lived there until 1952, when he returned to Switzerland. American writer and literary critic Edmund Wilson's (1895-1972) Memoirs of Hecate County was first published in 1946, but was banned in the United States until 1959.
Mann, Thomas. (1875-1955). Signed Letter - REVIEWING A BANNED BOOK BY EDMUND WILSON. Typed manuscript signed ("Thomas Mann"), 1 page, on personal letterhead, 10 7/8 x 7 in., Pacific Palisades, California, August 22, 1946. With one word correction in Mann's hand. Signature faded. Mann defends Memoirs of Hecate County against its suppression. "A novel by so literary an author as Mr. Edmund Wilson is obviously not meant for mass-consumption but for a circle of readers spiritually equipped to cope with its contents. Curiously, it is often works of artistic value that are being suppressed, whereas more popular products, fit to contribute to the brutalisation of the masses remain uncontested. The virtuous lust for suppression constitutes a feature of world fascism which - it is to be hoped - has not yet taken sufficient root in this country to determine the course of its intellectual life."
Mann (1875-1955) won the Nobel Prize for Literature (1924) after publishing The Magic Mountain. He was one of many German writers and intellectuals who left Germany when Hitler came to power, fleeing to Switzerland in 1933, and when the war began in 1939, moving to the U.S. He lived there until 1952, when he returned to Switzerland. American writer and literary critic Edmund Wilson's (1895-1972) Memoirs of Hecate County was first published in 1946, but was banned in the United States until 1959.
Mann (1875-1955) won the Nobel Prize for Literature (1924) after publishing The Magic Mountain. He was one of many German writers and intellectuals who left Germany when Hitler came to power, fleeing to Switzerland in 1933, and when the war began in 1939, moving to the U.S. He lived there until 1952, when he returned to Switzerland. American writer and literary critic Edmund Wilson's (1895-1972) Memoirs of Hecate County was first published in 1946, but was banned in the United States until 1959.