Das Glasperlenspiel.: Versuch einer Lebensbeschreibung des Magister Ludi Joseph Knecht samt Knechts hinterlassenen Schriften.

Zurich: Fretz & Wasmuth Verlag AG,, 1943. Very well-preserved in the jacket First edition, first printing, of Hesse's utopian, futuristic novel. His final and longest work, it was a major contributor to his receipt of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1946. Written over a period of more than a decade and published while the author was in exile in Switzerland, Das Glasperlenspiel was famously described by Thomas Mann - Hesse's fellow Nobel laureate and friend - as "a great novel of education" (quoted in Roberts, p. 41). A metaphor for the game of life, the novel is "rooted in autobiography... Hesse's whole person, the world in which he lived, the details and rhythm of his life, his agonies, ideals, and his view of man, society and Western civilization permeate Das Glasperlenspiel" (Mileck, p. 283). The novel has been available in English translation since 1949, initially with the title Magister Ludi, and later as The Glass Bead Game. Two volumes, octavo. Original light blue cloth, smooth spines divided by gilt fillets and lettered in gilt on black ground, front covers bordered in gilt and with Hesse's gilt monogram, top edges pink. With dust jackets and original cardboard slipcase. Bookplate of one Maria Ida Marti on front pastedown of vol. II; Christmas 1943 inscription in red crayon on both half-titles, small symbol on title pages. Bindings bright and square, spines faintly toned, couple of tiny spots on edges of vol. II; jacket spine panels lightly toned and creased at head, couple of small marks, a few minor nicks and shallow chips, two small punctures on vol. II jacket at rear panel fold, else sharp. A very good copy in like jacket. Joseph Mileck, Herman Hesse. Life and Art, 1980; Peter Roberts, From West to East and Back Again. An Educational Reading of Hermann Hesse's Later Work, 2012.