Gustave von Ashcenbach Thomas Mann’s hero from Death in Venice was based on the composer Gustav Mahler, one of the world’s foremost composers at the turn of the 20th century. Uncle Tom The prototype for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s black slave in Uncle Tom’s Cabin was Josiah Henson, who achieved fame as a Methodist preacher after escaping from the South. Shylock Shakespeare&#... Read more