In 2029 Neustadt, Herman Hesses diary unveils a world suffocating under the Pandemic of Attention. a global crisis born from humanity's inability to confront their own thoughts, which drive all actions. The story begins at the night he stumbles upon a mysterious drug dealer who goes by many names; Morpheus, Hafez and the Big Bang. After this encounter he finds himself in a funny situation of not being able to capture himself or his experience in words. Haunted by two major questions; who am i? and what is this conscious experience? poor guy makes his attempt more hopeless as he starts using more complex and precise words and repeating the same truth over and over with different words. however. As he ventures beyond the veil of thoughts, he discovers the astonishing richness of mundane experiences. Ultimately, Hesse uncovers a radical way to break the spell of thoughts; by beheading himself! dissolving the barrier of subject and object. looking for the looker and not finding it!

In addition to publishing such unforgettable novels as Siddbartba or The Steppe Wolf, Hermann Hesse throughout his life cultivated the genre of the short story in its most diverse variants, and always with an acuity and sensitivity that is difficult to find a term of comparison. Marvelous Tales brings together one of the veins explored by Hesse in his short narrative, that of stories in which magic and wonder, which are revealed as forms of love, take on a decisive role and refer us to childhood. Little narrative gems that no attentive reader will forget.

Twenty-three stories arranged in chronological order that are primarily concerned with the authors own secret.

"In the Old Sun, the "Sun" is a scruffy former tavern now employed as a poorhouse, where idlers sit around, living their past lives in the imagination. The narrator then turns to the earlier life of a man of talent and energy who falls victim to drink and is employed as the manager of the "Sun," who then begins to engage, sometimes quarrelsomely, with the other inmates, giving an opportunity for smaller stories within the story, some humorous, some sad. The men grate on one another, but they mourn as they die off"--

A brilliant journey of the psyche written by one of Germany's most influential writers and thinkers, Herman Hesse First published in 1919 under the pseudonyn Emil Sinclair, Demian follows the life of a troubled German youth as he navigates the duality of a world filled with illusions and spiritual truth. When Sinclair first meets childhood classmate Max Demian, his eyes are opened to the contradictions of his existing Christian knowledge. As Sinclair continues to question his worldview, the two friends are separated and reunited throughout their lives, with each encounter being a vantage for Sinclair to reconcile a world at discord. He ascends on his path to freedom and a realization of self as the friendship evolves in surprising and explosive ways. Demian is a classic coming-of-age story that continues to inspire generations of readers in its exploration of good and evil, morality, and self-discovery.

One of Herman Hesse's earliest novels, In the Old Sun (In der Alten Sonne) was completed in 1908 and first published in 1914. It tells a story about 4 very different old age pensioners who, for various reasons, end up in the poorhouse of a small German town. Hermann Hesse (July 2, 1877 – August 9, 1962) was a German poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Glass Bead Game, each of which explores an individual's search for authenticity, self-knowledge and spirituality. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature.

"The war is nobody's fault. It occurs by itself, like thunder and lightning. All of us who must fight wars are not the perpetrators. We are only their victims." "Strange News from Another Star" is a short fairy tale written by Hermann Hesse in April 1915, one year after the start of the 1st World War. In the fairy tale, two stars are juxtaposed. On one star, life is valued, beauty is appreciated, reason is respected, humane traditions are cultivated, love and happiness are experienced and peace prevails. On the other star, jealousy, hatred and despair are cultivated, wars are waged incessantly, battlefield murder is officially condoned, the countryside is left strewn with unattended cadavers and fear prevails. The latter is clearly our world as Hesse saw it, rendered mythical, and the former is an idealized world that ours could be. Unlike his earlier works, the story does not lend itself to rational interpretation. It is essentially a fairy tale dealing with the subconscious, magic and the dream world. The fairy tale represents an intermediate stage between Hesse's initial ambiguous stance to the war, as an internationalist who tolerated war and a pacifist who looked forward to a German victory, and his later active anti-war campaign. The story, which was titled "Merkwürdige Nachricht von einem anderen Stern" in German, was one of several that brought Hesse into conflict with supporters of the war, his country and its government. This print edition contains new translations of Strange News from Another Star, Faldum, Iris, Fine Dream Sequence, A Difficult Path, The Poet and Augustus