The Magic Mountain - [Complete & Annotated]

Thomas Mann

Publisher: E-Kitap Projesi & Cheapest Books

Summary

The Magic Mountain (German: Der Zauberberg) is a novel by Thomas Mann, first published in German in November 1924. It is widely considered to be one of the most influential works of twentieth-century German literature.

Mann started writing what was to become The Magic Mountain in 1912. It began as a much shorter narrative which revisited in a comic manner aspects of Death in Venice, a novella that he was preparing for publication. The newer work reflected his experiences and impressions during a period when his wife, who was suffering from a lung complaint, resided at Dr. Friedrich Jessen's Waldsanatorium in Davos, Switzerland for several months. In May and June 1912, Mann visited her and became acquainted with the team of doctors and patients in this cosmopolitan institution. According to Mann, in the afterword that was later included in the English translation of his novel, this stay inspired his opening chapter ("Arrival").

The outbreak of World War I interrupted his work on the book. The savage conflict and its aftermath led the author to undertake a major re-examination of European bourgeois society. He explored the sources of the destructiveness displayed by much of civilised humanity. He was also drawn to speculate about more general questions related to personal attitudes to life, health, illness, sexuality and mortality. Given this, Mann felt compelled to radically revise and expand the pre-war text before completing it in 1924. Der Zauberberg was eventually published in two volumes by S. Fischer Verlag in Berlin.

The narrative opens in the decade before World War I. It introduces the protagonist, Hans Castorp, the only child of a Hamburg merchant family. Following the early death of his parents, Castorp has been brought up by his grandfather and later, by a maternal uncle named James Tienappel. Castorp is in his early 20s, about to take up a shipbuilding career in Hamburg, his home town. Before beginning work, he undertakes a journey to visit his tubercular cousin, Joachim Ziemssen, who is seeking a cure in a sanatorium in Davos, high up in the Swiss Alps. In the opening chapter, Castorp leaves his familiar life and obligations, in what he later learns to call "the flatlands", to visit the rarefied mountain air and introspective small world of the sanatorium.

Available since: 12/17/2023.

Print length: 1000 pages.

Other books that might interest you

The scarlet letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne

A single letter can burn brighter than fire. 
In the rigid world of Puritan New England, one woman stands marked—publicly shamed yet inwardly unbroken. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne crafts a haunting meditation on sin, guilt, and the quiet resilience of the human spirit. 
A central figure of American Romanticism, Hawthorne explored moral complexity beneath the surface of outward respectability. His fiction moves beyond judgment, probing the psychological shadows of conscience, identity, and redemption. Rather than offering simple condemnation, he exposes the fragile architecture of societal virtue. 
This audiobook follows Hester Prynne’s solitary defiance, the secret torment of a revered minister, and the moral decay of a man consumed by vengeance. Through intimate scenes of public scrutiny, internal struggle, and evolving strength, the narrative unfolds layer by layer—without revealing the final reckoning that awaits. 
For generations, The Scarlet Letter has remained a cornerstone of American literature because it dares to confront hypocrisy and examine the cost of moral rigidity. Its themes of public shame and private truth feel strikingly contemporary, resonating far beyond its 17th-century setting. 
Presented through clear, steady AI narration, this audiobook preserves the gravity and cadence of Hawthorne’s prose while ensuring smooth pacing and articulate delivery for sustained listening. 
Enter a world where judgment is public—but truth is deeply personal. 
 Begin listening today.

Show book

The Canterville Ghost - Classic...

Oscar Wild

The Ghost that haunts Canterville Chase has built a marvelous career of midnight haunting. But when an American family moves in, they simply have no respect for permanent bloodstains, nightmarish chains nor ancient legends. They even throw pillows at him.

Show book

The Secret Agent

Joseph Conrad

Inspired by an actual attempted terrorist attack in nineteenth-century London, The Secret Agent offers a chillingly prophetic portrait of contemporary terrorism, even famously inspiring the Unabomber. The literary precursor to the espionage novels of such writers as Graham Greene and John le Carr├®, Conrad's intense political thriller resonates more strongly than ever in today's world, where a handful of fanatics can still play mad politics and victimize the innocent. 
Mr. Verloc is a double agent who operates a seedy shop in Soho, where he lives with his wife, her mother, and her idiot brother. When Verloc is assigned a dangerous act of sabotage, it has disastrous repercussions for his own family. Conrad paints a corrupt London underworld where terrorists and politicians, grotesques and foreign diplomats, fanatics and fashionable society are surprisingly intermingled. As Conrad brilliantly explores the confused motives that lie at the heart of terrorism, his savagely ironic voice is concerned not just with politics but with the desperate fates of ordinary people.

Show book

His Last Bow

Arthur Conan Doyle

Embark on a Final Adventure with Sherlock Holmes 
Dive into His Last Bow, the remarkable conclusion to Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary series of Sherlock Holmes stories. Set against the backdrop of wartime espionage, this tale showcases Holmes' unparalleled intellect as he takes on a perilous mission that could determine the fate of nations. 
This audiobook not only captures the brilliance of the detective’s methods but also offers an intimate look at his enduring friendship with Dr. Watson, his sense of duty, and his ultimate bow from the stage of mystery-solving. 
Narrated with precision by a state-of-the-art AI voice, this rendition brings to life the drama, intrigue, and timeless wit of Doyle’s writing. Prepare for a gripping farewell to one of literature’s most celebrated characters.

Show book

Great Gatsby The: Original 1925...

Francis Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Jazz Age Novel_______The 1925 Original Version, with Classroom History_______The Great Gatsby is considered F. Scott Fitzgerald's magnum opus, exploring themes of decadence, idealism, social stigmas, patriarchal norms, and the deleterious effects of unencumbered wealth in capitalistic society, set against the backdrop of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties. At its heart, it's a cautionary tale, a revealing look into the darker side to the American Dream."When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction—Gatsby who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the "creative temperament"—it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No—Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men..."

Show book

O Pioneers!

Willa Cather

O Pioneers! is a story of the immigrants who came to America to build new lives for themselves. Struggling against poverty, ignorance, drought, and storm, they came to love and understand the land, until it rewarded them with a richness exceeding all imaginings. 
The Bergsons are a family of strong-willed Swedish immigrants who have come to make a living on the great prairie. When the father, John, dies, worn out by disease and debt, his eldest daughter, Alexandra, becomes the head of the family. This is the story of her love affair with the land—an American Midwest that is vast and golden.

Show book