"Although life is an affair of light and shadows, we never accept it as such." Hermann Hesse Hermann Hesse is one of the most widely read German-language authors, his books are world literature classics. Hesse's great literary success is based on such works as The Glass Bead Game, Steppenwolf, Siddharta, Klingsor's Last Summer and Knulp. His books hold a special fascination for readers around the world. Hermann Hesse's Fairy Tales are seven short philosophical fictions written between 1913 and 1918, prior to and during the First World War. Still more relevant than ever, these philosophical fictions home in on the key questions of human existence and challenge conventional intellectual life and the orthodoxy of the world. Hesse's Fairy Tales deal with the dream world, the subconscious and the realm of magic. Full of images springing from Hesse's deep subconscious, the stories do not lend themselves to rational interpretation. They offer an exercise in spiritual detachment and allow their reader to gain perspective of what's really important in life.