"In the concluding installment of Alexandre Dumas's celebrated cycle of the Three Musketeers, D'Artagnan remains in the service of the corrupt King Louis XIV after the Three Musketeers have retired and gone their separate ways. Unbeknownst to D'Artagnan, Aramis and Porthos plot to remove the inept king and place the king's twin brother on the throne of France. Meanwhile, a twenty-three-year-old prisoner known only as "Phillippe" wastes away deep inside...

Neugroschel reinterprets Thomas Mann for modern English-speaking readers. These works subtly explore the great themes of Mann's fiction -- his mythic fascination with sexual inhibition and artistic creativity. / Contents The will for happiness -- Little Herr Friedemann -- Tobias Mindernickel -- Little Lizzy -- Gladius dei -- Tristan -- The starvelings -- Tonio Kröger -- The wunderkind -- Harsh hour -- Blood of the Walsungs -- Death in Venice.