Austrian writer Baroness (Freifrau) Marie von Ebner Eschenbach (1830-1916) was one of the foremost novelists in the German tongue, and one of the best short-story writers in the world. The Austrian aristocracy with their Slavo-German dependents in the Moravian villages constitute the world of her fiction. Country and city are her theatres, noble and peasant keep the balance. All forms of the short-story are at her command: letters, diaries, dialogues, and that most difficult of all forms, the story within a story. --- Where can be found a more concrete and genial characterization of the leading political lords and ladies, more lifelike portraits of officialdom and of the much abused peasantry than in her historic tale "The District Doctor" (1883), which has as its background the bloody peasant uprisings in Galicia in 1846? Where do we find human sympathy ethically and artistically more refined than in her little masterpiece "Krambambuli" (1883), the story of a dog with spotless pedigree who, like Rudiger in the Nibelungen, perishes in the vain attempt to serve two masters? --- Of the qualities that make up a great writer she has the deep and high truth of substance. She does not view the world in the rosy light of the idyll. She never seeks to avoid the ugly. But more, she puts a high moral interpretation on human life. Her ethics is proof against all egotism and will bear comparison with that of the great moralists, ancient and modern."

No literature can produce a more original writer than Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann (1776 1822), a German Romantic author of fantasy and horror, better known by his pen name E. T. A. Hoffmann (Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann). His works are very numerous and were published at Berlin in fifteen volumes. He is the subject and hero of Jacques Offenbach's famous but fictional opera The Tales of Hoffmann.---Of the two tales in this book, "The Sandman" is from the collection "Night Pieces," and The Elementary Spirit is from his "Later Works." In these stories, Hoffmann's purpose is to point out the ill-effect of a morbid desire after an imaginary world, and a distaste for realities. Different as their adventures are, there is a striking similarity in the characters of Nathaniel (in "The Sandman") and Victor (in "The Elementary Spirit"). However wild may be the subjects of Hoffmann, and however rambling his method of treating them, his style is remarkably lucid.---The story of the Sandman had its origin in a discussion which actually took place between La Motte Fouque (a German writer of the romantic movement, 1777 1843) and some friends, at which Hoffmann was present. Some of the party found fault with the cold, mechanical deportment of a young lady of their acquaintance, while La Motte Fouque zealously defended her. Here Hoffmann caught the notion of the automaton Olympia, and the arguments used by Nathaniel are those that were employed by La Motte Fouque."

Wilhelm Hauff was a writer of extraordinary fancy and invention, but working for a more obvious purpose, and producing narratives more related in character to popular legends. He was born in 1802, at Stuttgard, and in early life showed a great predilection for telling childish narratives. Being designed for the theological profession, he went to the University of Tubingen in 1820. --- On leaving the university, Hauff became tutor to the children of the Wurttemberg minister of war, General Ernst Eugen Freiherr von Hugel, and for them wrote his Tales, which he published in his "Almanach of Tales for the year 1826". --- Only a few of his famous tales take place in Germany, among them the "Nose, the Dwarf" and "The Cold Heart." --- Hauff needs only to be known to become popular in any country. His works, which are somewhat numerous, were published in a complete edition by the poet Gustav Schwab, in 1830. Wilhelm Hauff died in 1827, before he had completed his twenty-sixth year.

"What we find in the insane asylum of 'God's Beloved' are strange human communities, presented in the characteristic atmosphere of their milieu. Kellermann was a seeker after new forms of expression for psychical reaction; but he presented himself as a pure nature of great delicacy and lucidity." (Kuno Francke)

This anthology contains two of Austen's works, "Persuasion" and "Northanger Abbey."

"Two People" is about a love affair in Rome between a middle-aged American and a much younger Italian, but the word "people" in the title is both singular and plural, dealing with two cultures as well as with two individuals. First published in 1965, when the word "gay" in its sexual implications was little used or even recognized by heterosexuals, "Two People" anticipated many novels about same-sex relationships that followed. Neglected for over forty years, this moving novel has now been republished in a more tolerant climate.

"The Poor Musician" is an autobiographical novella by Austria's famous dramatist and poet Franz Grillparzer (1791-1872): Rounded and compacted, and yet saturated with the sad tragedy of his own isolation -- it is the most artistic work we have from his pen. For the student of Grillparzer-psychology it is a veritable treasure trove. "The Poor Musician" was the one piece of his creative genius that unflinchingly grappled with the great problem of resignation; the one piece that pictured resignation; but also the one piece that made resignation itself tragic. --- The poor, half-witted fiddler, shipwrecked in life, coddling his woe as the last sweet treasure it has left him, pouring it forth in the midnight solitude of his chamber in music that is music to none but the illusioned player -- such is resignation.