"Buddenbrooks, volume 1 of 2" by Thomas Mann is a novel published in 1901. It chronicles the decline of a wealthy north German merchant family across four generations, from 1835 to 1877. Drawing from Mann's own family history in Lübeck, the story explores conflicts between business and art, duty and personal happiness, as the Buddenbrook family's fortunes and ideals gradually erode amid Germany's rapid industrialization and changing values. Mann's first novel earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929.