Thomas Mann, 1901. Four-generation Lübeck merchant decline. Nobel-laureate-making first novel.
From Wikipedia
Buddenbrooks or The Buddenbrooks is a 1901 novel by Thomas Mann, chronicling the decline of a wealthy north German merchant family over the course of four generations, incidentally portraying the manner of life and mores of the Hanseatic bourgeoisie in the years from 1835 to 1877. Mann drew deeply from the history of his own family, the Mann family of Lübeck, and their milieu.