Steppenwolf

<p>A modernist work of profound wisdom that continues to enthral readers with its subtle blend of Eastern mysticism and Western culture, the Penguin Modern Classics edition of Hermann Hesse's <i>Steppenwolf</i> is revised by Walter Sorell from the original translation by Basil Creighton. <p>At first sight Harry Haller seems a respectable, educated man. In reality he is the Steppenwolf: wild, strange, alienated from society and repulsed by the modern age. But as he is drawn into a series of dreamlike and sometimes savage encounters - accompanied by, among others, Mozart, Goethe and the bewitching Hermione - the misanthropic Haller discovers a higher truth, and the possibility of happiness. This blistering portrayal of a man who feels himself to be half-human and half-wolf was the bible of the 1960s counterculture, capturing the mood of a disaffected generation, and remains a haunting story of estrangement and redemption. <p>Herman Hesse (1877 - 1962) suffered from depression and weathered series of personal crises which led him to undergo psychoanalysis with J. B. Lang; a process which resulted in <i>Demian</i> (1919), a novel whose main character is torn between the orderliness of bourgeois existence and the turbulent and enticing world of sensual experience. This dichotomy is prominent in Hesse's subsequent novels, including <i>Siddhartha</i> (1922), <i>Steppenwolf</i> (1927), <i>Narcissus and Goldmund</i> (1930) and his magnum opus, <i>The Glass Bead Game</i> (1943). Hesse was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946. <p>If you enjoyed <i>Steppenwolf</i>, you might like Hesse's <i>Siddhartha</i>, also available in Penguin Classics. <p>'A savage indictment of bourgeois society ... the gripping and fascinating story of disease in a man's soul'<br><i>The New York Times</i></p>