About the cover:

Full-grain binding Rust-orange oasis goatskin, spine with five prominent bands, hand-gilt title in the second and fifth band, four large, slightly deformed, hand-gilt circles on the front and back covers (Narcissus) and from which blind-stamped rays run over the spine bands (gold mouth), gilt head edge, hand-stitched capital, inner edges with gold and blind lines, coloured paper endpapers throughout, half-leather chemise with front rail, five bands with gilt spine like the cover, cover of coloured paper like the endpapers, slipcase with leather-bound opening and covered in light beige Ingres.

About the content:

Hermann Hesse: Narcissus and Goldmund

New Swiss Library

Schweizer Druck und Verlgshaus AG, Zurich The most successful book in Hesse's lifetime. Published in 1930, the story is set in the Mariabronn monastery school in the Middle Ages. It tells the story of the friendship between two contrasting men. Narcissus is an ascetic novice monk and thinker, while his pupil Goldmund is an artist and man of the world. Narcissus' solitary spirituality and his life in the monastery are only described at the beginning and end. The focus is on Goldmund's worldly adventures and love experiences.

About the artist: Hans Burkhardt completed an apprenticeship as a bookbinder at Delachaux & Niestlé in Neuchâtel from 1962-65 after graduating from Zurich cantonal school. He then completed an internship with Thorvald Henningsen in Zurich from November 1966 to March 1967.

This was followed by years of training and travelling in London, Stuttgart and Minden (Germany), Rome and Paris before he joined his parents' bookbindery Burkhardt in Zurich in 1969. On 1 April 1973, after the transformation into a public limited company, he took over the management and continued to develop the company, which resulted in the move to its own premises in Mönchaltorf in 1985. After the very inspiring phase at Henningsen, the practical craftsmanship of the book therefore became a hobby, i.e. it had to give way to the new activity as managing director of the predominantly industrial bookbindery.