L i t e r a t u r e 28 “The Most Complex Of All Hesse’s Writings”: Exceptional First Edition In English Of Steppenwolf 28. HESSE, Hermann. Steppenwolf. London, 1929. Octavo, original red cloth, dust jacket. $8500. First edition in English of the Nobel laureate’s “incomparable and explosive book,” a splendid copy. On earning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1946, Hesse’s body of work was praised for drawing so richly upon “influences from Buddha and St. Francis to Nietzsche and Dostoevsky… [that] found magnificent expression in the fantastical novel Der Steppenwolf, an inspired account of the split in human nature, the tension between desire and reason… an incomparable and explosive book” (Nobel Prize presentation speech). Steppenwolf, in many ways his most autobiographical novel, is “the most complex of all Hesse’s writings and the most psychologically profound” (O’Neill, ed., Great World Writers, 595). On publication in Germany in 1927 it “was eagerly embraced by a body of Hesse’s admirers… [but] by 1933 Hesse was being attacked in the Nazi press for poisoning the minds of youth,” and soon Steppenwolf and all his books were banned in Germany (Johnson, 172). Translation from the German by Basil Creighton. With two rear leaves of publisher’s advertisements. Goode, 23. Book with a bit of foxing to text block edge, minor toning to head of spine. Bright, price-clipped dust jacket with toning to spine, shallow chipping to spine head. An attractive copy.
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