A novella in German, first published in 1911. Gustav von Aschenbach, a celebrated and self-disciplined writer in middle age, feels exhausted and restless and travels to Venice. At a seaside hotel he notices a beautiful boy, and his calm ordered life begins to loosen. Meanwhile the city hides an unsettling secret. Mann weaves together beauty, art, longing and the fragility of control in a short, finely shaped story. It remains one of the best known works of modern European literature.