On May 2nd, 1919, Herman Hesse wrote: I have had to bear a very heavy burden in my personal life in recent years. Now I am about to go to Ticino once again, to live for a while as a hermit in nature and in my world.'

In 1920, after settling in the Ticino village of Montagnola, Hesse published Wandering. It is a love letter to a magic-garden world, which can be read as a meditation on Hesse's attempt to begin a new life.

Wandering has a particular relevance to the desire of our own times to return to nature. Illustrated with Hesse's own sensitive sketches, this serene book gives the joy of his pure prose, his lyricism and his love for the earth.