It has often been claimed that Hermann Hesse, with the melancholy of his poetry and the sensitivity to issues in his critical and narrative writings, is a resigned melancholic, humorless and lacking a sense of mischief and irony. The stories, verses, and anecdotes in this collection prove the opposite. Whether he parodies academic grappling with the past through the character of Knight Knorz von Knörzelfingen, reports on "Eduard's contemporary enjoyment of the times," keeps us updated on sporting events like toddler swimming from Gibraltar to Africa, or touches on the "wonders of technology," including the invention of the atomic nutcracker and Sunday excursions to Saturn, he is equally rich in original ideas as he is in pointed verses.