Buddenbrooks

Thomas Mann, John E. Woods

$28.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
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German

Worlds Classics
01 May 2026

Literature, Poetry & Criticism; Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945); Classic fiction (pre c 1945); Sagas; Fiction: special features

The definitive English translation of Mann's first masterpiece- a grand epic of family life

'I bear within me the seed, the rudiments, the possibility of life's capacities and endeavours. Where might I be, if I were not here?'

Buddenbrooks is one of the original, and greatest, of family chronicles- the story of four generations of a wealthy and bourgeois German family as they experience all the anguish and rewards of human life- births, marriages, divorces, deaths, madness, bankruptcy and artistic achievement. Richly realized and profoundly moving, Thomas Mann's first great novel was published when he was only twenty-five, and was one of the two books for which he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929.

John E. Woods' elegant translation is widely acclaimed as the best available English version.

By: Thomas Mann
Translated by: John E. Woods
Imprint: Worlds Classics
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm, Spine: 35mm
Weight: 500g
ISBN: 9780241785409
ISBN 10: 0241785405
Pages: 864
Publication Date: 01 May 2026
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Thomas Mann (Author) Thomas Mann (1875-1955) is regarded by many as the greatest German novelist of the 20th century. Mann's first major novel, Buddenbrooks, sold over a million copies in Germany alone, before Hitler banned and burned it. Mann fled Germany and spent the latter part of his life living in Switzerland and America. He wrote many essays as well as novels, and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929.

Reviews for Buddenbrooks

Perhaps the first great novel of the 20th century * New York Times * His masterpiece * Los Angeles Times * One of the greatest things a novel can do is to create a world - and this is one of the most richly evoked and inhabited of all -- Michael Frayn * Week * A remarkable achievement…. In Woods’s sparkling translation, the reader encounters a work that is closer in style, vocabulary, idiom, and tone to the original. * The New York Times Book Review * Wonderfully fresh and elegant…. Essential reading for anyone who wishes to enter Mann’s fictional universe. * Los Angeles Times *