Buddenbrooks

First published in 1901, this novel chronicles four generations of a prosperous grain-merchant family in a north German Hanseatic city resembling Lubeck. The Buddenbrooks begin in mid-nineteenth-century confidence, with house, firm, and civic standing; later chapters follow Thomas as he tries to keep the business and the family name intact, his brother Christian's instability, Antonie's failed marriages, and the frail musician Hanno. Money, manners, and a Protestant work ethic erode as temperament and the age change. The book is a family saga of decline told through dinners, ledgers, and illnesses, not a political history of German unification.

Quarter bound in black buckram, pale blue paper boards patterned in black. Blue-green endleaves. Pale blue-green slipcase.