Always to be found in the bar-parlour of the Angler's Rest where he is a favourite with the accomplished barmaid, Miss Postlethwaite, Mr Mulliner, the narrator of Meet Mr Mulliner, returns for another series of stories about his extraordinary relations, including Lancelot, Adrian, Cyril, Sacheverell, Eustace, Egbert and Augustine Mulliner.

Famous for his novels, Thomas Mann is more accessible through the shorter fictions which span his entire career. The most famous of these stories is one of the earliest. Death in Venice was made into the celebrated Visconti film, but all his mature preoccupations are present in this story: the need for a sense of meaning in existence, the relationship between life and art, the central role of sexual energy and the strange forms it can take, the place of death and disease, the importance of work, the individual's complex relations with his society and the dominant culture. These themes are...

Marcel continues his voyage of discovery through the homosexual world, where affairs of the ageing Baron de Charlus lead to unexpected and hilarious adventures.