Six German Romantic Tales: By Kleist, Tieck, & Hoffmann

RE Tieck: Stupendous masterpieces !!!! Tieck's Phantasus, wow !!! Ludwig Tieck is a genius of highest order - this stuff is supreme German gothic dark romantic. Mind-boggling & spirit crushing hard-core stories that delve darkly into the unconscious; paranoia, retribution, the mind-destroying power of nature, dreams, spells of enchantment, madness... Exquisite dark words of magic and vision; insane depth hidden, disguised as "fairy-tales" !! Highly unique; pure genius !!!, A hundred million stars.... (unfortunately I don't speak German; Tieck's works are so hard to find in English - I had to search through obscure translations of out of print books in libraries to find some of his tales. What atrocity, what shame, what crime !!!! Translators from German, translate all Tieck's works to English (and all other languages), his tales are world heritage !!! ...in the meanwhile, my fellow seekers, find a copy of Thomas Carlyle's German translations & check out "The Trusty Eckart"...) Also Heinrich von Kleist & E.T.A. Hoffmann. Get everything from all these three guys you can find... You won't regret it. (you won't find "complete works" published in English & sadly there is plenty of neglected gems - e.g. I found Hoffmann's "The Story of Serapion" (wow!!!) in an out-of-print collection called "Great Short Stories of the World"... Also out-of-print is "An Abyss Deep Enough": Kleist's letters & anecdotes; definitelly worth checking out... ) ... I wonder what happened in Germany at that time?? I mean, such splendid dazzling brilliance !!!! What were these guys smoking ??? How could they write such lucid & vivid narrative prose, and with such merciless & brutal intensity, reminiscent of LSD-induced revelations ??? Wow !! Michael Saidak

I have an obession with this moment in cultural history. Unfortunately, I do not speak German, so a lot of the goodies I crave can be hard to come by... As for this little book, the Kleist stories are pretty available, and Hoffmann isn't too too difficult to find, although I, for one, hadn't read these particular stories. It was the Tieck that attracted me to this book, and boy, they are goodies. Anyway, if you are curious about this sort of lore, this is a great place to start, it's diverse and still gives you a general idea of what these kooks were up to. The intro is helpful for the uninitiated, as well. And for advanced players, you get Tieck, who is rarely translated into English for those of us who are too lazy to learn German. If you like moody-gloom 19th Century cheeze, you'll love this stuff, trust me.