Der Zauberberg (The Magic Mountain), first published in 1924, is Thomas Mann’s monumental novel and one of the great works of twentieth-century literature. Written in German, the first volume follows young Hans Castorp as he visits a tuberculosis sanatorium in the Swiss Alps and finds himself drawn into the rarefied intellectual and emotional world of the long-term patients — a world suspended apart from ordinary time.
Mann uses the sanatorium as a microcosm of European civilization on the eve of catastrophe, weaving philosophy, medicine, politics, and desire into richly layered prose. Download this free public-domain EPUB to begin one of modern literature’s most rewarding journeys.