Dietrich Hessling, arguably one of the most disgusting protagonists in literature, is the prime example of a cowardly opportunist, a 'nazi prefigure,' as Heinrich Mann later put it. Humiliated by his father as the child of a paper manufacturer from the small town of Netzig, Hessling found his place in the beer-loving collective of a fraternity. As a wealthy factory heir, he makes it to the...

Kafka's short prose and stories are key texts of modernity. The selection contains all the important works: early prose from the Meditation collection, the great stories The Judgment, The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, the later collections A Country Doctor and A Hunger Artist, and texts from the estate.

Discover something new from Hans Fallada: Some of the anecdotes, reports, stories and speeches collected here, which range from the mid-1920s to his death in 1947, are little known or have not yet been published. They reveal the extent to which the author develops a unique feeling for social problems, sensitively observes reality and finds artistic means to design worldly stories with just a...

Outside the Door is rightly considered to be the play that best expresses the self-confidence of those returning from the war after the Second World War – a popular school read, although its ignoring of all other victims of the war has now been critically questioned. And Borchert's short stories like The Rats Are Sleeping at Night or The Bread are among the undisputed classics of the genre.

A selection of Hofmannsthal's most important stories. In addition to the fairy tale of the 672nd night, the equestrian story and the experience of the Marshal von Bassompierre, there are also the soldier's story, the moments in Greece or the woman without a shadow, which Hofmannsthal also adapted into an opera libretto.

Expelled from his parents' house as a 'good-for-nothing' by his father, the dreamy miller's son travels the world with nothing but his violin in his luggage, in search of freedom, individuality and artistry. On his travels he meets the love of his life, is disappointed and moves on. But a love letter calls him back... will his dream come true now? The musical novella is considered a masterpiece...

In 1929, Tucholsky spent the summer vacation with his girlfriend near Gripsholm Castle in Sweden. The stay inspired him to write a summer story about the success and failure of love and the illusion of being able to escape from reality.

With the Radetzky March, Joseph Roth published his first Austria novel in 1932 and had international success with it: the novel about the decline of the Danube monarchy ended in 1916 with the death of Emperor Franz Joseph I. This farewell to the k . u.k. Roth added monarchy to the Capuchin Crypt in 1938. In the form of the first-person narrative, he chose the perspective of a demoralized member...

Job was Roth's first resounding success as an author - and together with the Radetzky March, which appeared a year later, also formed the artistic highlight of his work: the little teacher Mendel Singer experienced great suffering, turned against his God and only found his way back to America at the end of his life the wondrous reunion with his son, who he believed dead, returned to his faith....

Roth's great novel established his world literary reputation: in an inimitable way he drew a careful portrait of that bygone era, which even gains amiable features from the weaknesses and mistakes of the declining monarchy, but at the same time shows the meaninglessness and rigidity of the society, which was almost entirely geared towards the military. The novel is accessible in this edition in...

The leviathan, the legendary, huge fish of the Old Testament, ultimately derived from pagan mythology, also received the supervision of the coral from God. Roth's novel of the same name revolves around the life of the small coral trader Nissen Piczenik, who in the end, after losing his business, increasingly disengages from his small village home and his faith and finally dies in the sea. The...

'The appearance of the following scenes is excluded for the time being,' Schnitzler himself wrote about his comedy. Indeed, the first edition (1903) unleashed a wave of outrage. The first performance (1920) was disrupted by controlled demonstrations; further performances were banned, two actors were reported for 'indecency'.