One of Hermann Hesse's most important early works is his school novel "Under the Wheel," which tells the story of a gifted child who breaks under the pressure of expectations from his father and society. In this work, Hesse processed much of what he himself had to endure. His educators believed they needed to place the 14-year-old in an institution for the mentally ill and epileptics. It was the suffering from these early experiences that shaped him into a writer and gave his later works their urgency and timeless relevance. Like no other work by the poet, this book has a well-documented backstory, which is presented here for the first time in all preserved testimonies of life and creates an authentic picture of education at the end of the 19th century.