The most celebrated novella of this giant of German Romanticism. Arnim is surrealist, absolutely. - André Breton

Achim von Arnim (1781 - 1831) was one of the chief figures of the German Romantic movement. Married to the sister of Clemens Bretano, he collaborated in many of the projects of the group and was editor of the literary review The Hermit’s Journal, and later of the anti-liberal political paper The Prussian Correspondent. Despite his dubious political beliefs his writings are revolutionary through their depiction of alienation by means of oneiric confusion of reality and the supernatural, the perfect and most extraordinary exemplars of “Romantic irony.” His novella Die Majoratsherren (1820), here translated, is perhaps his greatest work. Arnim was much admired by the Surrealists through the volume of his stories translated by Theophile Gautier. Breton wrote a foreword to the 1923 edition of this collection, which was illustrated by Valentine Hugo.