Books

1924. London: Martin Secker. 1927. 8vo. 2 vols. Original green publisher's boards ruled in blind, lettered in gilt to upper board and backstrips; housed in both the printed dust jackets (ruled in black, black and orange lettering); and the original slipcase with printed paper label to spine; pp. [x], xi, [iii], 3-434; [viii], 437-900, [ii]; very bright copies, spine tips touched by sun, the jackets priced 18/ to the backstrips, also very good, aside from some browning and chipping at head; a couple of light stains to the folds; slipcase rubbed, worn and at some point expertly reinforced. First UK edition of Mann's masterpiece, translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. One of the greatest novels of the 20th century, it was the principal work for which Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize. The Magic Mountain was first published in German in 1924, although Mann had begun writing early drafts of the manuscript over ten years earlier in 1912, while his wife was recuperating from a respiratory…

A landmark of modern literature, The Magic Mountain unfolds in a sanatorium in the Swiss Alps, a community devoted exclusively to sickness that serves as a fictional microcosm for Europe on the eve of World War I.