Published on the eve of World War I, Death in Venice tells the story of a successful but ageing writer who follows his wanderlust to Venice in search of spiritual fulfilment that instead leads to his erotic doom. In the decaying city, besieged by an unnamed epidemic, he becomes obsessed with an exquisite Polish boy, Tadzio. "It is a story of the voluptuousness of doom," Mann wrote. "But the problem I had especially in mind was that of the artist's dignity." “Death in Venice” tells about a ruinous quest for love and beauty amid degenerating splendour. This book is a classic.