本书收入黑塞著名的中篇小说三则，即《悉达多》、《盖特露德》和《克诺尔普》。《盖特露德》通过两个极具才华的音乐家和一位年轻美貌女子间的一场三角恋故事，暗示出小说主题：男主人公情场失意，却促使了他艺术的创造。《克努尔普》被黑塞称为"我最喜爱的小说"，它展示了上世纪德国一小镇的风俗图景，斯·史蒂芬·茨威格赞这部充满感伤之情的作品说："书里有一个德意志国家，是从来还没有人认识到的，就连我们自己也不例外。"主打篇《悉达多》叙述一个婆罗门贵族青年寻求人生真谛的一生，他从锦衣玉食到游方为僧，又从骄奢淫逸到摆渡济事，最终悟道成佛。小说被誉为黑塞思想和其文学作品的精华，是具有世界性影响的成功之作。(This book has covered three famous medium-length novel written by Hesse, namely Siddhartha, Gerfrud and Knulp. Gerfrud tells the triangle love story between two very talented musicians and a young beautiful woman to suggest the theme of the novel: the failure of the hero in love promoted his creation in art. Knulp was called "my favorite novel" by Hesse, which shows the customs picture of a small town in Germany in the last century, Steven Zweig has ever praised this works which has been full of sad feelings and said: "The book has a German country that has never been known even by ourselves." The main novel Siddhartha describes the life of a brahman aristocratic youth who seeking the true meaning of life. He has transferred from living an extravagant life to touring as the monks, from being the luxurious and dissipated life to practice charity and realized the truth of everything to be the Buddha ultimately. The novel is known as the essence of Hesse's thought and his literary works, and is a successful work with worldwide influence.)