Hermann Hesse Books In Order

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. Peter Camenzind (1904)
  2. Beneath the Wheel / The Prodigy (1906)
  3. Gertrude (1910)
  4. Rosshalde (1914)
  5. Knulp (1915)
  6. Demian (1919)
  7. Klingsor’s Last Summer (1919)
  8. Siddhartha (1922)
  9. Steppenwolf (1927)
  10. Narcissus and Goldmund (1930)
  11. The Journey to the East (1932)
  12. The Glass Bead Game / Magister Ludi (1943)

Short Story Collections In Publication Order

  1. Poems (1971)
  2. Stories of Five Decades (1972)
  3. Hours in the Garden and Other Poems (1979)
  4. Siddhartha, Demian, and Other Writings (1992)
  5. The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse (1995)

Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order

  1. If The War Goes On (1946)
  2. The Hesse/Mann Letters (1968)
  3. Reflections (1971)

Anthologies In Publication Order

  1. Spells of Enchantment: The Wondrous Fairy Tales of Western Culture (1991)

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Hermann Hesse Books Overview

Peter Camenzind

In his first novel, Hesse began what would become the project of a lifetime writing what he called ‘biographies of the soul.’ In these, he portrayed the fundamental journey he saw as necessary for man to resolve his inherent struggle both with himself and with the world around him. For the dissatisfied and unruly Peter Camenzind, his journey serves only to wither his faith in humanity as his travels reveal a world rife with suffering. But it is his internal journey, sparked by caring for a helpless cripple, that enables him to calm his restlessness and recover his love of man.

Beneath the Wheel / The Prodigy

Selected and with an Introduction by Theodore Ziolkowski. Hans Giebenrath lives in a sleepy Black Forest village not in the habit of producing prodigies. When the local community discovers that he is beyond doubt a gifted child, they map his future out for him. Pressed toward the path of serious scholarship, Hans is successful in the academic system, but he finds its relentless uniformity crushing, and eventually breaks down in the middle of class. Diagnosed with a ‘nervous condition,’ he is sent home by the school never to return. Back in his simple village, he is finally able to recover when he experiences the delights of both nature and romance, from which his ceaseless studies had always kept him.

Gertrude

‘One of the defining spirits of our century.’ Ralph Freedman With Gertrude, Herman Hesse continues his lifelong exploration of the irreconcilable elements of human existence. In this fictional memoir, the renowned composer Kuhn recounts his tangled relationships with two artists his friend Heinrich Muoth, a brooding, self destructive opera singer, and the gentle, self assured Gertrude Imthor. Kuhn is drawn to Gertrude upon their first meeting, but Gertrude falls in love with Heinrich, to whom she is introduced when Kuhn auditions them for the leads in his new opera. Hopelessly ill matched, Gertrude and Heinrich have a disastrous marriage that leaves them both ruined. Yet this tragic affair also becomes the inspiration for Kuhn’s opera, the most important success of his artistic life.

Rosshalde

Rosshalde is the classic story of a man torn between obligations to his family and his longing for a spiritual fulfillment that can only be found outside the confines of conventional society. Johann Veraguth, a wealthy, successful artist, is estranged from his wife and stifled by the unhappy union. Veraguth’s love for his young son and his fear of drifting rootlessly keep him bound within the walls of his opulent estate, Rosshalde. Yet, when he is shaken by an unexpected tragedy, Veraguth finally finds the courage to leave the desolate safety of Rosshalde and travels to India to discover himself anew.

Demian

In Demian, one of the great writers of the twentieth century tells the dramatic story of young, docile Emil Sinclair’s descent led by precocious shoolmate Max Demian into a secret and dangerous world of petty crime and revolt against convention and eventual awakening to selfhood. ‘The electrifying influence exercised on a whole generation just after the First World War by Demian
is unforgettable. With uncanny accuracy this poetic work struck the nerve of the times and called forth grateful rapture from a whole youthful generation who believed that an interpreter of their innermost life had risen from their own midst.’ From the Introduction by Thomas Mann

Siddhartha

Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences biographical, historical, and literary to enrich each reader’s understanding of these enduring works. One of the most widely read novels of the twentieth century, Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha explores the struggle of the soul to see beyond the illusions of humankind and achieve a deeper wisdom through spirituality. Born into wealth and privilege, Siddhartha renounces his place among India s nobility to wander the countryside in search of meaning. He learns suffering and self denial among a group of ascetics before meeting the Buddha and coming to realize that true peace cannot be taught: It must be experienced. Changing his path yet again, Siddhartha reenters human society and earns a great fortune. Yet over time this life leaves Siddhartha restless and empty. He achieves enlightenment only when he stops searching and surrenders to the oneness of all. Rika Lesser s new translation deftly evokes the lyricism and quiet beauty of Hesse s novel, which first appeared in German in 1922. At once personal and universal, Siddhartha stands outside of time, resonating in the hearts of truth seekers everywhere. Robert A. F. Thurman holds the first endowed chair in Indo Tibetan Buddhist Studies in the United States, the Jey Tsong Khapa Chair at Columbia University. The first American to be ordained a Tibetan monk, he has been a student and friend of His Holiness the Dalai Lama for forty years. Thurman is the author of numerous books, most recently Infinite Life: Seven Virtues for Living Well.

Steppenwolf

Hesse’s classic story, a potent combination of Eastern and Western insights into the human search for meaning, raises issues that are perhaps more important in our current cultural climate than ever before. Steppenwolf, first published in German in 1927, is given new life in this fresh translation. Thomas Wayne presents a contemporary take on the lone individual lost in the ironic good fortune and security of bourgeois banality and cultural conformity. Harry Haller, the hero, has all the insight, all the leisure, all the material goods he needs, yet he is not at peace with his life and decides to commit suicide. Then Hermine and her friends open to him the countless pathways of self discovery. Basil Creighton’s 1929 translation revised in 1963 by Joseph Mileck is the best known version in English; it skips words, smoothes out long, involved passages, unnecessarily improves the text all things Thomas Wayne refuses to do. He emphasizes a strict adherence and reverence for the literal a Hesse for the 21st century, meaningful and faithful to the original.

Narcissus and Goldmund

Narcissus and Goldmund is the story of a passionate yet uneasy friendship between two men of opposite character. Narcissus, an ascetic instructor at a cloister school, has devoted himself solely to scholarly and spiritual pursuits. One of his students is the sensual, restless Goldmund, who is immediately drawn to his teacher’s fierce intellect and sense of discipline. When Narcissus persuades the young student that he is not meant for a life of self denial, Goldmund sets off in pursuit of aesthetic and physical pleasures, a path that leads him to a final, unexpected reunion with Narcissus.

The Journey to the East

Journey to the East is written from the point of view of a man coincidentally called ‘H. H.’ who becomes a member of ‘The League’, a timeless religious sect whose members include famous fictional and real characters, such as Plato, Mozart, Pythagoras, Paul Klee, Don Quixote, Tristram Shandy, Baudelaire, and the ferryman Vasudeva, a character from one of Hesse’s earlier works, Siddhartha. A branch of the group goes on a pilgrimage to ‘the East’ in search of the ‘ultimate Truth’. The narrator speaks of traveling through both time and space, across geography imaginary and real. Although at first fun and enlightening, the Journey runs into a crisis in a deep mountain gorge called Morbio Inferiore when Leo, aparently a simple servant, disappears, causing the group to plummet into anxiety and argument. Leo is described as happy, pleasant, handsome, beloved by everyone, having a rapport with animals to a discerning reader, he seems a great deal more than a simple servant, but nobody in the pilgrimage, including the narrator, seems to get this. Nor does anyone seem to wonder why the group dissolves in dissension and bickering after Leo disappears. Instead they accuse Leo of taking with him various objects which they seem to be missing and which turn up later and which they regard as very important and which later turn out not to be very important, and they blame him for the eventual disintegration of the group and failure of the Journey. Years later the narrator tries to write his story of the Journey, even though he has lost contact with the group and believes the League no longer exists. But he is unable to put together any coherent account of it; his whole life has sunk into despair and disillusionment since the failure of the one thing which was most important to him, and he has even sold the violin with which he once offered music to the group during the journey. Finally, at the advice of a friend, he finds the servant Leo and, having failed in his attempt to re establish communication with him or even be recognized by him when he meets him on a park bench, writes him a long, impassioned letter of ‘grievances, remorse and entreaty’ and posts it to him that night. The next morning Leo appears in the narrator’s home and tells him he has to appear before the High Throne to be judged by the officials of the League. It turns out to the narrator’s surprise that Leo, the simple servant, is actually President of League, and the crisis in Morbio Inferiore was a test of faith which the narrator and everyone else flunked rather dismally and H. H. continues to flunk test after test even after finding this out. But the final d nouement is a stroke of Hesse’s typical Eastern mysticism at its finest.

The Glass Bead Game / Magister Ludi

The final novel of Hermann Hesse, for which he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946, The Glass Bead Game is a fascinating tale of the complexity of modern life as well as a classic of modern literatureSet in the 23rd century, The Glass Bead Game is the story of Joseph Knecht, who has been raised in Castalia, the remote place his society has provided for the intellectual elite to grow and flourish. Since childhood, Knecht has been consumed with mastering the Glass Bead Game, which requires a synthesis of aesthetics and scientific arts, such as mathematics, music, logic, and philosophy, which he achieves in adulthood, becoming a Magister Ludi Master of the Game.

Poems

Few American readers seem to be aware that Hermann Hesse, author of the epic novels Steppenwolf and Siddhartha, among many others, also wrote poetry, the best of which the poet James Wright has translated and included in this book. This is a special volume filled with short, direct Poems about love, death, loneliness, the seasons that is imbued with some of the imagery and feeling of Hesse’s novels but that has a clarity and resonance all its own, a sense of longing for love and for home that is both deceptively simple and deeply moving.

Siddhartha, Demian, and Other Writings

This volume offers a substantial portion of Hesse’s copious writings and is representative of his fundamental themes and interests. Includes Siddhartha, Hesse’s most celebrated work, which reflects his lifelong studies of Oriental myth and religion, Demian, an inner journey which had an unprecedented impact on the youth of its day, plus other writings which show Hesse as a master of self irony and the short story form.

The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse

Nobel Prize winner Hermann Hesse was one of the definitive writers of the 20th century. Reminiscent of ancient Oriental and German romantic tales, these fairy tales will enthrall and delight listeners of all ages. Full of visionaries and seekers, pricesses and wandering poets, Hesse’s tales inspire us with deep spiritual longing and harbor the greatest joys and the deepest wounds of the heart. 2 cassettes.

The Hesse/Mann Letters

The letters present two great XX century Nobel Prize writers grieving for the ruined world. In the 1930s and 1940s, they rail against the stupidity of war and the cowardice of diplomats, against the social savagery of the Na*zis, against the blind forces of abstraction and nationalism. They brood about the fate of Germany and of Europe after the last shots have been fired. They have lived through a time of extraordinary horror and yet they have not surrendered to despair or nihilism. Reading the letters, the reader will feel like some privileged guest in a special room, sitting off to the side somewhere, listening while these men talk.

Spells of Enchantment: The Wondrous Fairy Tales of Western Culture

Zipes brings together the best literary fairy tales ever written, giving readers a sense of the history of the genre and its evolution. Includes more than 60 tales by writers such as Hans Christian Andersen, Wilhelm Grimm, Voltaire, Goethe, Hawthorne, Yeats, Hesse, Thurber, Jane Yolen, Angela Carter, and more. Illustrated.

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