The Magic Mountain

"The Magic Mountain is simply one of the greatest novels ever written."—The Guardian First published in 1924, The Magic Mountain’s widely considered to be one of the most influential works of twentieth-century German literature, written by Thomas Mann, a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. It recounts the story of Hans Castorp, a young orphan who, while visiting his cousin in a sanatorium where she is being treated for tuberculosis, contracts the illness himself and ends up staying for treatment. The secluded sanatorium becomes his entire world while serving as a reflection of pre-war Europe. Written prior to World War I, and heavily revised afterward, it is a complex and dense novel that effortlessly combines realism and symbolism, and it has mesmerized critics and scholars since its publication.