Wealthy, esteemed, and deeply rooted in tradition, the Buddenbrook family epitomises nineteenth-century German bourgeois values. But as the tides of modernity and change sweep through Europe, their once-stable world begins to crumble, along with the tenets on which the Buddenbrooks built their success. Spanning four generations, this semi-autobiographical family epic records the transition of genteel Germanic stability to a very modern uncertainty. 'Perhaps the first great novel of the 20th century' New York Times