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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
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