Discover the Penguin books that shaped us

The Magic Mountain

byThomas Mann, John E. Woods (Translator)
It is summer time in the Swiss Alps. Hans Castorp, an ‘ordinary young man’, has arrived at an exclusive sanitorium for a brief visit to his convalescent cousin. Once there, time will lose its familiar contours, as Hans himself falls ill and loses himself in a landscape of dreams, beauty and eternal snow.

The Magic Mountain is Thomas Mann’s masterwork: a Bildungsroman that is also an allegory of Europe before the devastations of the First World War and a profound meditation on time, art, sickness and death. John E. Woods’ virtuoso translations of Thomas Mann’s novels are widely recognised as the best versions available in English.

The most life-changing novel

Stylist

About Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann (1875-1955) is regarded by many as the greatest German novelist of the 20th century. Mann’s first major novel, Buddenbrooks, sold over a million copies in Germany alone, before Hitler banned and burned it. Mann fled Germany and spent the latter part of his life living in Switzerland and America. He wrote many essays as well as novels, and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929.
Details
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • ISBN: 9780241785423
  • Length: 752 pages
  • Price: £12.99
All editions