Pleasurable reading was the criterion by which this book of short German fiction was edited and created. It is not a historical survey or a tendentious selection—but quite simply a collection of good reading.

...In a geographic sense, the selection was not limited to Germany, but includes Switzerland and several regions of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Edited by Robert Pick

Contents:

• Youth, Beautiful Youth by Hermann Hesse
• Kannitverstan by Johann Peter Hebel
• An Episode in the Life of the Marshal de Bassompierre by Hugo von Hofmannsthal
• Lukardis by Jakob Wassermann
• Krambambuli by Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
• Cardiac Suture by Ernst Weiss
• The Message That Failed by Moritz Heimann
• Rock Crystal by Adalbert Stifter
• The Bachelor's Death by Arthur Schnitzler
• The Unexpected Reunion by Johann Peter Hebel
• Mona Lisa by Alexander Lernet-Holenia
• The Picnic of Mores the Cat by Clemens Brentano
• Zerline, the Old Servant Girl by Hermann Broch
• The Friend in the Closet by Hermann Kesten
• The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
• A Little Legend of the Dance by Gottfried Keller
• Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
• The Hussar by Johann Peter Hebel