If the War Goes On…

One of the most astonishing aspects of his career is the clear-sightedess and consistency of his political views, his passionate espousal of pacifism and internationalism from the start of World War 1 to the end of his life. The earliest essay in this book was written in September 1914 and was followed by a stream of letters, essays, and pamphlets that reached its high point with Zarathustra’s Return in 1919, the year that also saw the publication of Demian, in which Hesse extorted German youth to shake off the false gods of nationalism and militarism that has led their country into the abyss. Such views earned him the labels traitor and viper in Germany, but after World War II he was moved to reiterate his beliefs and another series of essays and letters.

Klingsor’s Last Summer

This is the first English-language edition of Klingsor’s Last Summer, which was originally published in 1920, a year after Demian and two years after Siddhartha. The book has three parts: a story called A Child’s Heart, followed by Klein and Wagner and Klingsor’s Last Summer, Hesse’s two longest and finest novellas. The three works, along with Siddhartha, are the first fruits of the period that began in the spring of 1919, when Hesse settled in the Ticino mountain village of Montagnola to start a new life without his wife and children.

Tanning to pages in Rosshalde.  Creasing along spine on Klingsor’s Last Summer. 

Wandering

This synthesis of prose, poetry, and watercolor sketches one of his favorite books has never before appeared in English.

On May 2, 1919, Hesse wrote to Romain Rolland: “I have had to bear a very heavy burden in my personal life in recent years. Now I’m about to go to Ticino once again, to live for a while as a hermit in nature and in my work.”  In 1920, after settling in the Ticino mountain village of Montagnola, he published Wandering, a love letter to this magic-garden world that can be read as a meditation on his attempt to begin a new life.

Rosshalde

Rosshalde, Herman Hesse’s fourth novel, was originally published in 1914, three years after his first journey to the East.  It tells the story of a world-famous painter, Johann Veraguth, and of the process of self-discovery that ultimately permits him to break loose and seek an authentic life in India.

By most people’s standards, Veraguth’s wealth and position define him as a happy man, but he has been trapped in an empty marriage and all but destroyed by it.  Within the walls of his idyllic estate, Rosshalde, he and his wife live physically and spiritually apart.  Pierre, their seven-year-old son, passes between them, though no meaningful word ever does.

Veraguth’s love for Pierre is the force that imprisons him at Rosshalde.  Otto Burkhardt, his beloved old friend, makes him see that he must change his life for his soul’ sake, but it is tragedy that finally liberates Veraguth and leads him out into the world, free of his stifling past, free to realize himself.  Now he can set out for the East, where he dreams, “a new atmosphere, pure and free from guilt and suffering, will envelope him.”

Tanning to pages in Rosshalde and creasing to spine in Klingsor’s Last Summer.