The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann Translated by Helen Lowe-Porter

A new immersive edition for Audible Read by Steve Gough

Sound design by Stephen Earley

Original Music by Laurene Hope and Stephen Williamson

Thomas Mann's vivid, dramatic, and thought-provoking The Magic Mountain is firmly established as one of the classic epic novels of the twentieth century.

Part surreal comedy, part grim tragedy, Mann's story depicts a decaying European society on the eve of the First World War. Set in an isolated sanatorium high up in the Swiss Alps, we follow the destinies of a variety of exotic, high-society characters drawn from every corner of Europe. All suffer from consumption, and dream of a cure—yet are at the same time squeezing as much pleasure and distraction as they can out of a situation ever-shadowed by sickness, pain, and death.

These varied destinies become a metaphor for civilisation's fatal fragility, on the brink of the world's very first global catastrophe. Today, as we face many other terrifying examples of human destructiveness, this novel has acquired yet more power and relevance.

In its original published version, Mann's novel contained a number of extended passages, drawn by the author from contemporary scholarly texts. A reader might easily skip these more obscure sections, but for the audiobook listener, this can be difficult.

And so for this new and more accessible version, some of these passages have been shortened or omitted. The result is that Mann's epic story is now free to flow seamlessly in all its original drama, variety, wit, and intensity.

This modern audiobook version also features a specially created immersive soundscape to draw the listener more intimately into Mann's vivid characters and their richly imagined snow-clad world.

The Magic Mountain is read by Steve Gough, whose sound-designed version of Captain Scott's 1911 Last Expedition to the Antarctic won listeners' acclaim following its Audible release in 2021.