First published in Germany in 1901, when Mann was only twenty-six, Buddenbrooks surpasses all other modern family chronicles in its immensity of scope, richness of detail, and fullness of humanity. With remarkable fidelity to the original German text, this superb translation emphasizes the magnificent scale of Mann's achievement in this riveting, tragic novel.
Translated by John E. Woods with an introduction by T. J. Reed.
Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Contemporary Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author's life and times.
JOHN E. WOODS was the distinguished translator of many books -- most notably Arno Schmidt's Evening Edged in Gold, for which he won both the American Book Award for translation and the PEN Translation Prize; Patrick Süskind's Perfume, for which he again won the PEN Translation Prize in 1987; Suskind's The Pigeon and Mr. Summer's Story; Doris Dörrie's Love, Pain, and the Whole Damn Thing and What Do You Want from Me?; and Libuse Monikova's The Façade. Mr. Woods died in 2023.
T. J. REED was the Taylor Professor of German Language and Literature at the University of Oxford until his retirement in 2004. Previous publications include Thomas Mann: The Uses of Tradition and The Classical Centre: Goethe and Weimar 1775-1832.