<DIV>In the spring of 1922, several months after completing <i>Siddhartha</i>, Hermann Hesse wrote a fairy tale that was also a love story, inspired by the woman who was to become his second wife. That story, <i>Pictor&#8217;s Metamorphoses</i>, is the centerpiece of this anthology of Hesse&#8217;s luminous short fiction. Based on <i>The Arabian Nights</i> and the work of the Brothers Grimm, the nineteen stories collected here represent a half century of Hesse's short writings. They display the full range of Hesse&#8217;s lifetime fascination with fantasy--as dream, fairy tale, satire, or allegory.<br></div> <DIV><b>Hermann Hesse</b> was born in Germany in 1877 and later became a citizen of Switzerland. As a Western man profoundly affected by the mysticism of Eastern thought, he wrote many novels, stories, and essays that bear a vital spiritual force that has captured the imagination and loyalty of many generations of readers. His works include <i>Steppenwolf</i>, <i>Narcissus and Goldmund</i>, and <i>The Glass Bead Game</i>. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1946. Hermann Hesse died in 1962.<br></div> <DIV>In the spring of 1922, several months after completing <i>Siddhartha</i>, Hermann Hesse wrote a fairy tale that was also a love story, inspired by the woman who was to become his second wife. That story, "Pictor&#8217;s Metamorphoses," is the centerpiece of this anthology of Hesse&#8217;s luminous short fiction.<br><br>Based on <i>The Arabian Nights</i> and the work of the Brothers Grimm, the nineteen stories collected here represent a half century of Hesse&#8217;s short writings. They display the full range of Hesse&#8217;s lifetime fascination with fantasy&#8212;as dream, fairy tale, satire, or allegory. This edition includes an introduction by Theodore Ziolkowski in which Hesse&#8217;s debt to earlier fantasy literature is fully explored.<br></div> <DIV>"Enchanting."&#8212;<b><i>Los Angeles Times </i></b><br><br>"Hesse is a writer of suggestion, of nuance, of spiritual intimation."&#8212;<b><i>The Christian Science Monitor</i></b><br><br>"One of the defining spirits of our century."&#8212;<b>Ralph Freedman, professor emeritus, Princeton University</b><br><br>"These moral fantasies . . . are the autobiography of a soul."&#8212;<b><i>The Washington Post </i></b><br><br>"An array of fanciful tales . . . as entertaining as it is instructive . . . Hesse strives to make his lessons universal, examines archetypal tendencies and pattern in generations of storytelling, and reestablishes the forgotten truth that goodness and justice are timeless."&#8212;<b><i>Chronicle of Culture </i></b><br></div>