About the work
“Buddenbrooks: Verfall einer Familie” (The Decline of a Family) is Thomas Mann's first novel; it was published in two volumes by S. Fischer in 1901. Mann had completed the manuscript in July 1900 at the age of 25. The novel has been adapted for the stage many times and filmed several times.
Plot
The novel follows four generations of a wealthy Lübeck merchant family between 1835 and 1877. Through Johann Buddenbrook the elder, Consul Jean and Senator Thomas down to his son Hanno, alongside the siblings Tony and Christian, it traces the gradual decline of the house, which loses fortune, standing and vitality with each generation.
Cultural significance
After a slow start the book became a bestseller: a popular edition reached one million copies in 1930, and by 2010 more than nine million copies had been sold in German. In 1929 Thomas Mann received the Nobel Prize in Literature with explicit reference to “Buddenbrooks”; the novel is regarded as the first German-language social novel of world standing.