Klingsor's Last Summer

Summary

Klingsor's Last Summer is a novella by Hermann Hesse.

Klingsor's Last Summer
AuthorHermann Hesse
Original titleKlingsors letzter Sommer
CountryGermany
LanguageGerman
PublisherS. Fischer Verlag
Publication date
1920
Media typePrint (hardcover and paperback)
Followed bySiddhartha 

Written over the course of a few weeks in July and August 1919, it was published in December 1919 in the Deutsche Rundschau. It was later published (by S. Fischer Verlag) in a volume which included Kinderseele and Klein und Wagner.

Plot edit

The story is an account of the final months of the life of Klingsor, a forty-two-year-old expressionist painter. A lover of poetry, a heavy drinker, and a womanizer, he spends his final summer in southern Switzerland, torn between sensuality and spirituality and troubled by feelings of impending death.

Character list edit

  • Klingsor
  • Louis the cruel
  • Ersilia
  • The Queen of the mountains
  • The Armenian astrologer
  • Edith