Das Glasperlenspiel

Zürich: Fretz & Wasmuth. 1943.

Inscribed by Hesse: "Ein Gruss für Reinhard Weiss von H. Hesse". Third edition (Drei Auflage), issued the same year as the first. Two volumes. 8vo. 182x108mm. pp. 451, [1]; 441, [1]. Original pale blue cloth with HH monogram in gilt to upper covers and spine decorated in gilt with black label lettered in gilt. Original dust jackets. Spines of dustjackets browned and a little soiled with slight chipping to the foot of the jacket of volume one. Housed in a cardboard slipcase. A very nice copy. Hesse was not profligate with his inscriptions and this is an important book on which to find his signature. Rejected for publication in Germany because of the Hesse's opposition to the National Socialist regime Das Glasperlenspiel was Hesse's last full length novel. It is a complex utopian meditation on education, learning, psychology the relationship between intellectuals and society. Three years after its publication, Hesse was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.