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“... To read Donald Prater’s biography of Rilke in the hope of getting to know the poet in depth would be a tantalising exercise. Lack of information is not the problem. There is no shortage of documentary evidence available to the investigator and Prater has made full use of it ...”

“... books on Mann, however, each as long as Buddenbrooks, have appeared in English. Ronald Hayman and Donald Prater are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to Anthony Heilbut’s Hamlet. They are dull and worthy and useful perhaps, and they repeat the same facts and the same narrative. Their desire for Mann to be a better person is almost comic. Heilbut has clearly ...”

“... scholars worry especially about his reputation in America and the UK. ‘For English readers,’ Donald Prater writes in his biography of Mann, ‘the humour of which he was so proud is faint.’ Prater is discussing the four Joseph novels (1933, 1934, 1936, 1943), but as far as I know English-speaking readers have ...”