Specially chosen for their power to evoke German life and culture, these short, simple readings include poems, stories, essays and anecdotes. Featured authors include Goethe, Hesse, Heine, Schiller, and Holderlin, in selections offering a variety of subject matter and gradual advancements in language skills.

The short stories in this bilingual anthology are from the works of some of the great masters of the German literary tradition - including Goethe, Glister, Mann, and Kafka - and offer a representative collection illustrating the development of German fiction from the late eighteenth to the late twentieth centuries.

The novella, one of the most sophisticated genres of narrative literature, owes its development primarily to German belles letters. In the present collection, Mr. Steinhauer has assembled a representative sampling that ranges from the Enlightenment to the postwar periods and reveals the scope and flexibility of this art form. Included are Wieland's "Love and Friendship Tested," Kleist's "Michael Kohlhaas," Chamisso's Peter "Schlemihl," Hoffmann's "Mademoiselle de Scudery," Keller's "Clothes Make the Man," Meyer's "Sufferings of a Boy," Mann's "The Bajazzo," Fontane's "Stine," Hauptmann's "Heretic of Soana," Kafka's "Hunger Artist," Schnitzler's "Fraulein Else," and Bergengruen's "Ordeal by Fire."