Buddenbrooks was written before the turn of the century; it was first published in 1902, and became a German classic. It is one of those novels—we possess many of them in English—which are at once a work of art and the unique record of a period and a district. Buddenbrooks is great in its psychology, great as the monument of a vanished cultural tradition, and ultimately great by the perfection of its art: the classic purity and beautiful austerity of its style.

The translation of a book which is a triumph of style in its own language, is always a piece of effrontery. Buddenbrooks is so leisurely, so chiselled: the great gulf of the war divides its literary method from that of our time. Besides, the author has recorded much dialect. This difficulty is insuperable. Dialect cannot be transferred.

So the present translation is offered with humility.

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