"HESSE IS THE HEIR TO DOSTOEVSKY… THE DEMONS ARE ON THE LOOSE IN DOSTOEVSKY AS WELL AS IN HESSE": FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH OF HESSE'S IN SIGHT OF CHAOS, 1923, CONTAINING HIS FAMOUS WRITINGS ON THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV AND THE IDIOT, IN ORIGINAL BOARDS.

(DOSTOEVSKY, Fyodor) HESSE, Hermann. In Sight of Chaos. Zurich: Verlag Seldwyla, 1923. Slim octavo, original blue-gray paper boards; pp. 64.

First edition in English of Hesse's preeminent work on Dostoevsky—"his closest fellow-traveler into the abyss of the human soul"—featuring his eloquent writings on The Brothers Karamazov and The Idiot, a handsome copy in fragile original paper boards.

"Hesse is the heir of Dostoevsky… the demons are on the loose in Dostoevsky as well as in Hesse" (Liebmann, Hermann Hesse, 27). In particular, when Hesse was writing Demian (1919/1923), "the prophetic and visionary strain of Dostoevsky became very important" (Stelzig, Hermann Hesse's Fictions, 152). This first edition in English of In Sight of Chaos, first issued in German in 1920 as Blick ins Chaos, contains Hesse's two most famous works on Dostoevsky. In the lead essay on The Brothers Karamazov (1879-80/1912), Hesse writes that Dostoevsky "foretold… the downfall of Europe… European and especially German youth are destined to find their greatest writer in Dostoevsky—not in Goethe, not even in Nietzsche." In the accompanying essay on The Idiot (1868-69/1887), Hesse declares we must stand "on the threshold of the borderland where Myshkin stood, where truths cease and new ones begin." Hesse clearly saw Dostoevsky as "his closest fellow-traveler into the abyss of the human soul" (Cicovacki, Dostoevsky). T. S. Eliot was so impressed that he referenced the closing lines of Hesse's Brother's Karamazov in his note to line 366 of The Waste Land (1922). Translation by Stephen Hudson, pseudonym of English novelist and translator Sydney Schiff. Hesse's Brothers Karamazov essay serialized in Dial magazine (June 1922: 607-18). Printed in Switzerland and distributed by London-based A. Zwemmer, it is the first edition in English of a book by Hesse to appear in England. As issued without dust jacket. France, Oxford Guide, 334.

Text very fresh with only light foxing mainly to preliminaries, faint soiling to boards. A desirable about-fine copy.