Demian

• Condition: Very Good, Used. 
• Binding: Paperback. 

Author(s): Hermann Hesse (Author), Thomas Mann (Introduction)

GoodReads 4.14/5

Like all of Hermann Hesse's major works, Demian, which the then 40-year-old author wrote in the middle of the First World War, has an unusual and exciting history of its origins and impact. The fact that this book, completed in the fall of 1917, was not published until June 1919, six months after the end of the war, was due to the author's unknown nature. Hesse had recommended the manuscript to the publisher as the first work of a sick young poet, the time-critical poet Emil Sinclair, who had previously only been noticed in newspapers and magazines through pacifist exhortations and stories (which also came from Hesse). But despite the incognito, the book enjoyed a stormy reception and was awarded the Fontane Prize for the best first work by a young author the same year it was published. Thomas Mann compared the electrifying effect of the book with that of Goethe's Werther, as it "hit the nerve of the times with uncanny precision and enraptured an entire youth, who believed that a herald of their deepest life had arisen from their midst, to grateful delight." Until the pseudonym was discovered in May 1920, three editions were published, followed by 93 more editions under Hesse's own name during his lifetime.

____

For a brief description of book conditions, please visit Condition FAQs.

If you have specific questions about a book, please Contact Us.