Siddhartha In English and Abridged for Younger Readers, an Indian Tale Retold with an Introduction by Nicholas Tamblyn, and Illustrations by Katherine Eglund

Siddhartha learns along his journey that experience, rather than avoiding certain things in the "real world," leads to understanding; rather than desires and belongings being a distraction, they are as important to our perception of the world as all other actions and thought. Siddhartha learns that enlightenment only comes from within--it cannot come to us through our teachers or worldly possessions. It is available at all understanding ages and in all manners of life. It comes from calmness, compassion, and regarding all things as being of value in and of themselves. This edition of "Siddhartha," a shorter English version of the German classic with illustrations, awakens the inquiring and compassionate minds of readers of any and all ages. "Siddhartha" is a uniquely spiritual novel, and perhaps may also be described as a religious novel and a philosophical novel; it is strikingly honest in the dark aspects of life that are revealed in Siddhartha's spiritual journey and the self-discovery that he undergoes. He greatly admires Buddha and Buddhist teachings, but even his admiration for the greatest of all teachers will not persuade him of any more valid authority than his own suffering and his own experience. "Siddhartha" has been called a musical novel and a lyrical novel, and there is no other book like it among the classics of fiction, religious writings, and philosophy. Hermann Hesse was born in 1877 in Calw, a town at the edge of the Black Forest in Germany. His family were Swiss missionaries, and he was expelled from the seminary at the age of fourteen. After his rebellious and depressed teenage years, he worked in bookstores and began to make his way into Germany's literary circles. It was at the age of thirty-seven that he published his first novel, the partly autobiographical "Peter Camenzind"; he went on to publish a number of other books, including "Demian" in 1919 (an instant critical and popular success), "Steppenwolf," and "The Glass Bead Game." He published "Siddhartha," his ninth novel, in 1922. Hesse was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1946, then living a quiet life in Switzerland until his death aged eighty-five in 1962.