Felix Krull was a product of Mann's old age, and was left unfinished - a literary tragedy, since many people still think it probably his finest book. He was always fascinated by charlatans, show people, actors, tricksters, impostors, and in Krull himself he portrayed a charming, handsome, upwardly-mobile young confidence man who is born into the upper bourgeoisie, sinks briefly into the lower orders of society, and then starts to rise like a magnetic mine. Mann knew this lush, Belle Epoque milieu well, and he also shows a vein of genuine comedy which is very different from his accustomed ponderous, very "literary" irony. By contrast, the early (1909) Royal Highness fatally lacks the necessary light touch, and so this tale, set in a stuffy, provincial German court, is rather plodding stuff