A Note on the Translation

This is a complete translation of Hermann Hesse’s Demian. Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend, made directly from the German. No earlier English version was used as its basis. The source is a public-domain transcription of the S. Fischer edition (Berlin, 1921), which reproduces the text first published in 1919. That first edition gave its author as Emil Sinclair, the narrator of the book; Hesse’s own name appeared on it only from 1920. We print his name.

The subtitle is translated as The Story of Emil Sinclair’s Youth. Hesse’s untitled opening pages, which begin with the two sentences he set as an epigraph, are headed here “Prologue”; the eight chapters keep his numbers and titles. Der Schächer names one of the two thieves crucified beside Jesus, so that chapter is called “The Thief on the Cross.” Each of the 793 paragraphs of the original appears here as one paragraph, and the epigraph returns word for word where Sinclair repeats it in chapter five.

Sinclair writes as a man of about thirty, looking back on the years from ten to twenty. His past is told in the past tense, and his present reflections stay in the present, as in the German. His long sentences, his lists, and his returning words have been kept. The most important of these words is Zeichen, the sign God set on Cain in Genesis; we have written “mark” and “the mark of Cain” throughout, as the English Bible does, and kept “sign” only where Hesse means an omen in the sky. Führer is always “guide,” Dämon is “daemon,” Schicksal is “fate,” and the god who unites God and devil keeps his name, Abraxas.

Two words of the period that are now slurs have been rendered neutrally. Names keep their German form, and Frau Eva stays Frau Eva, since Sinclair uses the phrase as a name. Spelling and punctuation are American. There are no translator’s notes.