The Magic Mountain

It is summertime 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 recognized as the best versions available in English. It is summertime 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 recognized as the best versions available in English.