109. Thomas Mann (1875–1955), writer.

... Autograph postcard in German to Dezső Kosztolányi, addressed “Lieber Herr Kosztolanyi”.
The relationship between the two writers has been extensively documented and thoroughly examined in Hungarian literary scholarship. They first met in 1913, during Thomas Mann’s first visit to Hungary. Arriving on 5 December, Mann met journalists the following day and visited the Parliament building, where he encountered several distinguished Hungarian intellectuals, among them Ferenc Herczeg, Ignotus, József Rippl-Rónai, and in all likelihood Dezső Kosztolányi as well. They met again that afternoon, an occasion later recalled by Kosztolányi: “We walked along the old Váci Street while the peaceful sunshine of those bygone days glittered on the pavement. We spoke of Wedekind. ‘A genius and a brute,’ he said. Then he remembered that he was due to lecture that evening and had brought no patent leather shoes in his luggage. We entered a shop to buy a pair.”
They continued to meet in later years, both in Budapest and Munich, and exchanged numerous letters over the decades. Their relationship occasionally assumed a genuinely friendly character, and they also maintained close professional ties. Beyond matters of publishing and royalties, Thomas Mann wrote the preface to the German translation of Kosztolányi’s novel Nero, the Bloody Poet. “We do not know whether it was Kosztolányi’s idea or the publisher’s (more probably the writer’s) that the already celebrated and highly popular Thomas Mann should contribute an introduction to the volume. Kosztolányi soon sent the German translation of Nero to Thomas Mann. The first surviving document of their correspondence is the postcard in which Thomas Mann acknowledges receipt of the manuscript.” (Pál Réz: Thomas Mann és Kosztolányi Dezső. Világirodalmi Figyelő, 1959, nos. 3–4.)
The present item is precisely this postcard, in which Thomas Mann writes that he is “now reading your novel and will write the letter which may serve as a preface as soon as possible.”
Dated: Munich, 23 May 1923.
 
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