Weimar in Princeton

Thomas Mann and the Kahler Circle

Stanley Corngold

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781501386480
• eBook ISBN: 9781501386503
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: German Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Thomas Mann arrived in Princeton in 1938, in exile from Nazi Germany, and feted in his new country as "the greatest living man of letters." This beautiful new book from literary critic Stanley Corngold tells the little known story of Mann's early years in America and his encounters with a group of highly gifted émigrés in Princeton, which came to be called the Kahler Circle, with Mann at its center. The Circle included immensely creative, mostly German-speaking exiles from Nazism, foremost Mann, Erich Kahler, Hermann Broch, and Albert Einstein, all of whom, during the Circle's nascent years in Princeton, were "stupendously" productive. In clear, engaging prose, Corngold explores the traces the Circle left behind during Mann's stay in Princeton, treating literary works and political statements, anecdotes, contemporary history, and the Circle's afterlife. Weimar in Princeton portrays a fascinating scene of cultural production, at a critical juncture in the 20th century, and the experiences of an extraordinary group of writers and thinkers who gathered together to mourn a lost culture and to reckon with the new world in which they had arrived.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Abbreviations for Citations
• Introduction
• 1 Thomas Mann in Princeton
• 2 Erich von Kahler: Mann’s Great Friend
• 3 Hermann Broch in Princeton
• 4 Goethe and the Circle
• 5 Mann and Einstein
• 6 Did Einstein Read Kafka’s Castle on Mann’s Recommendation?
• Toward a Conclusion
• Appendix I: A Chronicle, with Commentary
• Appendix II: Lili Kahler Remembers
• Acknowledgments
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the author
• Copyright