Your Majesty is Thomas Mann’s second novels. Since the first edition was published in 1909, it was loved by many readers and sold well. In 1909, it was reprinted 10 times and was printed for 60 times during nine years. The adaptation of the film in the 1950s has become one of the highest box-office income film at the time. However, over the years, it has been ignored and even criticized by critics and scholars. Scholars represented by Herman Hesse and many well-known commentators believe that this book is a popular literature. It is only in recent years that the literary significance of this little book and its significance for the author’s life work have been gradually discovered and raised attention in German academic circles.The plot is simple, even demotic: Klaus Heinrich, a prince of a German principality at the turn of the last century, was made a ruling prince, using the term "majesty", because his elder brother, Archduke Albrechtii, was frail and uninterested in governing. The simple, good-hearted Klaus Heinrich loved the role of attending events instead of the grand duke, but sometimes felt lonely and empty until he met and fell in love with Emma Spolman, the daughter of an American millionaire. In the process of pursuing and constantly being rejected by Emma, Klaus Heinrich realized his true nature: a hollow man who does not understand real life and feelings, living in a fictional "world of appearances". His duties and work are meaningless. So he began to change himself, learned to be sensitive to the feelings of others, and began to study economics, hoping to do something practical for the country. His change also caused Emma to change her attitude toward him. At the end of the story, the two become engaged, and Emma’s father agrees to pay for the little principality’s financial troubles.Thomas Mann called Your Majesty a turning point in his transition to democratic thought. Although there is no real democracy in the modern sense in this novel, it still explores the meaning of the monarch in the modern state. But the sovereign can hear the voices of the people, and the hopes and choices of the people can influence the decisions of the rulers. The romantic idea of a monarch representing and guiding the people, and the people in turn influencing and helping the monarch in his decisions, was the rudiment of democracy.
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