Knulp
Elegant edition, entirely illustrated and printed by Théo Schmied, with a frontispiece, four headpieces and 176 woodcut initials, printed in colour.
Limited to 1,000 copies. One of the first 100 copies on Lana vellum, subscribed for by the bookseller Auguste Blaizot (no. 82).
First published in Germany in 1915, Knulp is one of Hermann Hesse’s earliest major works of fiction. In three episodes, the author follows the fate of his eponymous vagabond, a free spirit who prefers wandering, contemplation and dreams to the conventions of an established life. Through Knulp, several of the themes that would permeate Hesse’s work already emerge: solitude, the search for self, rejection of social conventions, and the difficult reconciliation between individual freedom and belonging to the world.
Ill and nearing the end of his life, Knulp returns to the landscapes of his childhood. His wandering then takes on the character of a reverse initiation, culminating in the final dialogue with God, which gives the narrative its spiritual dimension: what might have appeared to be a futile existence ultimately finds its justification in the very freedom and beauty with which it was lived.
Théo Schmied provides a remarkably fitting accompaniment to this poetic vagabond. The son of François-Louis Schmied, he drew, engraved and printed the abundant colour illustrations himself, which run throughout the volume: a frontispiece, headpieces and, above all, nearly two hundred decorative initials, lending this small edition a particularly successful decorative unity.