«On Myself» and other Princeton Lectures

Of Thomas Mann's public lectures at Princeton University,On Myselfis of particular interest. Since the publication of the German text in 1966, it has been increasingly referred to as the definitive authorial comment on Mann's works, themes, and sources. The English version in which it was given in May 1940 appears here for the first time, in its two parts entitledFrom Childhood Play to «Death in Venice»andOn my own Work, together with the two lecturesRichard Wagner and «The Ring of the Nibelung»andGoethe's «Werther», which Thomas Mann delivered in English at Princeton in 1939. The lectures are put in context by the editor's informative introduction and annotations, which also detail Mann's handwritten alterations to the typescripts on which the edition is based.