German Literature

This volume presents Kafka as son, brother, student, friend, lover, writer, critic, and reveals his fascination for life in all its complex, absurd and tragic manifestations. Though aware of the precariousness of letter-writing, Franz Kafka...
By: Franz Kafka

This collection is the only available edition of Fried’s poetry in English. Hailed as a major modern poet by the British press, his reputation is also firmly established in Europe. Fried’s poetry holds some of the most tender lines of poetry in any...
By: Erich Fried

Unsuccessful in his endeavours, the young and naive Peter Schlemihl seals a pact with the Devil in which he exchanges his shadow for the purse of Fortunatus, thereby gaining everlasting riches. But when he is ridiculed, persecuted and hated for...
By: Adelbert von Chamisso

This second volume of plays by Georg Kaiser contains five plays ranging from his early work through the time of his prolific maturity in the 1920s to his last period as an exile in Switzerland, where he died in 1945. David and Goliath is set in...
By: Georg Kaiser

Spring Awakening is set in a small German town in the 1890s where adolescent boys and girls grope their way towards knowledge and maturity against the blocks set up by parents and teachers in the name of “morality”. Melchior, fearless in his pursuit...
By: Frank Wedekind

Two of Wedekind’s most seminal plays, Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box both focus on the actions of the young heroine Lulu, who embodies both animal sensuality and waif-like innocence, as she escapes a life on the streets, receives a society...
By: Frank Wedekind

The young student Nathanael remains haunted by his childhood fears: he is convinced that Coppelius, a strange night-time visitor who used to come to his house to conduct alchemical experiments with his father – the latter dying as a consequence of...
By: E.T.A. Hoffman

Seduced by the chimerical world of the theatre and taking upon himself the grand ambition of becoming a successful performer and dramatist, the merchant’s son Wilhelm Meister embarks on a tumultuous quest of self-discovery. Along his path he finds...
By: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Presented as a collection of confessional letters written by the eponymous protagonist, The Sorrows of Young Werther charts the emotional journey of a young man who, during a stay in a picturesque German village, falls in love with Lotte, a local...
By: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe