Surrealism appeared in visual arts and poetry long before it appeared in prose (a striking example is Victorian poet Robert Browning's "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came"); but, there were several important prose works in this genre in the early twentieth century. Two especially noteworthy examples are the Irish writer James Joyce's celebrated 1922 novel Ulysses, which was published five years before Steppenwolf; and, French writer Andre Gide's novel The Counterfeiters, which appeared in 1927, the same year as Steppenwolf. Surrealist literature is relatively rare for various reasons, one being that it is very difficult to write.

Most critics believe that Herman Hesse accomplished the task as well as anyone could have.