The Buddenbrooks

'All his powers were in decline; the only thing growing stronger in him was the conviction that all this could not last much longer, that his demise was imminent.'

The Buddenbrooks (1900) was Thomas Mann's first major success. It draws on his own family history and on his vivid memories of growing up in the commercial town of Lübeck in North Germany. The narrative traces the decline of a wealthy, established merchant family, from their height during the last decades of the nineteenth century, to the onset of uncertainty in the modern world. The novel displays Mann's interest in decline as a psychological process, where artistic sensibility weakens the ruthless business instincts that founded the Buddenbrooks' prosperity. At the centre is the reluctant businessman Thomas Buddenbrook, a tragic figure who conscientiously dedicates himself to a way of life that gradually undermines him.

Mike Mitchell's new English translation is accompanied by Ritchie Robertson's introduction and explanatory notes, illuminating the cultural, philosophical, and personal context of the novel's composition.

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Author: Thomas Mann,Mike Mitchell,Ritchie Robertson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 04/08/2026
Pages: 656
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.01lbs
Size: 7.77h x 5.30w x 1.11d
ISBN: 9780198843238

About the Author
Thomas Mann

Mike Mitchell taught at the University of Reading and the University of Stirling before becoming a full-time literary translator. He has translated over one hundred works, both fiction and non-fiction, from German and French. His translation of Herbert Rosendorfer's Letters Back from Ancient China (1997) was awarded the Schlegel-Tieck Prize in 1998.

Ritchie Robertson retired in 2021 as Schwarz-Taylor Professor of German at the University of Oxford. He is now an Emeritus Fellow of the Queen's College. His many books include Kafka: Judaism, Politics, and Literature (1985), The Enlightenment: The Pursiuit of Happiness, 1680-1790 (2020) and German Political Tragedy: The Machiavellian Plot and the Necessary Crime (2024), as well as books on Kafka and Goethe in OUP's Very Short Introductions series. Since 2004, he has been a Fellow of the British Academy.