Klingsor's Last Summer

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

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

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

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

Style