Buddenbrooks: Verfall einer Familie
Berlin: S. Fischer, 1901.
First edition, first printing. Two volumes. 566; 539, [9] pp. with 8 advertising pages at rear of second volume. Text in German in Fraktur type. Bound in publisher's green or gray linen over beveled boards stamped in black and gilt, top edge gilt, patterned endpapers, ribbon bookmarks. Near Fine with light rubbing to cover extremities, light soiling, and light toning and occasional thumbing to contents. Hinges on Volume I are a little tender, binding exposed at p. 385, bookseller ticket to back free endpaper verso. Inner hinges exposed and tender on Volume II, rubber ownership stamp to third page, subtle repair to cloth at tail. A very pretty set in Jugendstil binding. Jacob 2.
The first edition of Thomas Mann's family saga, his most famous novel and the primary reason for his 1929 Nobel Prize win. The ownership stamp is that of Paula and Victor Asriel in Vienna. Paula Asriel, who was predeceased by her husband, killed herself to avoid deportation in the Holocaust, though she managed to get her son out of the country on a Turkish passport. Thomas Mann, targeted by the Nazis for his politics rather than his religion, was deprived of his German citizenship in 1936 and never lived in his home country again.
Price: $15,000