Royal Highness

Klaus Heinrich is the second son of a grand duke in a small ornamental German state whose treasury is quietly failing. Born with a stunted left hand that he is trained to keep out of sight, he is raised for a life of pure representation: ceremonies attended, formulas repeated, hands shaken, nothing actually accomplished. Mann’s second novel after Buddenbrooks makes that hollowness its subject, then offers a way out of it. Imma Spoelmann, whose father is an American millionaire settled in the duchy on a fortune built from mining, railways and oil, is sharp-tongued, studies mathematics, and is unimpressed by court protocol. Their courtship doubles as the prince’s education in economics and in ordinary feeling. Mann drew on his own courtship of Katia Pringsheim, and the book sold well while critics argued over its deliberate fairy-tale shape.