SIDDHARTHA. EINE INDISCHE DICHTUNG

Berlin: S. Fischer, 1922. First Edition. Wraps. Owner name of George Goetz dated 1939 on the front endpaper well above Hesse's inscription with a small stain at the bottom corner well below Hesse's inscription. A few marginal pencil notations, likely by Goetz. Some aging to the paper but at least Very Good and very scarce when signed. Thin octavo (5-3/4" x 8-3/4") bound in the publisher's heavy brown wraps with black lettering on the front cover and a later cloth tape hand-lettered spine; [1-8], 9-146, [-147], [1, blank], [2, publisher's ads]. The true First Edition with the text in German of one of this Nobel Prize winner's two famous and important novels, the other being of course STEPPENWOLF. This copy is SIGNED in ink by the author with a brief inscription on the front endpaper. Hesse based this book on the early life of Gautama Buddha. The story of a son rebelling against his father's teaching and traditions and eventually finding true enlightenment resonated with those maturing in the 1960s and 1970s making this title something of a cult classic. It was made into a beautiful film in 1972 by Conrad Rooks.

George Goetz was a Danish Jew living in Sweden because of persecution. He maintained a correspondence with Hesse, only recently discovered, from 1939 to 1951. Their letters discussed everything from the trivial to Hesse's work and its place in Nazi Germany. One common point of interest was the German-Jewish philosopher Constantin Brunner (Goetz would later become President of International Constantin Brunner Institute.). This book as well as several other titles inscribed to Goetz were discovered with the letters and is now being offered for public sale for the first time.