Theodor Fontane   Before the Storm (OUP). Set in Prussia during the period of the Napoleonic wars, this epic is the greatest German historical novel of the second half of the nineteenth century, dealing with the conflict between patriotism and liberty. The much shorter Effi Briest (Penguin) focuses on adultery in the context of the social mores of the age. Cécile (Angel) likewise deals with moral dilemmas and ends tragically, while Two Novellas (Penguin) demonstrate the author's mastery of the small-scale.

 

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe   The Sorrows of Young Werther (Penguin). An early epistolary novella, treating the theme of suicide for the first time ever. Wilhelm Meister: The Years of Apprenticeship and Wilhelm Meister: The Years of Travel (both John Calder/Riverrun Press) is a huge, episodic and partly autobiographical cycle of novels. Tales for Transformation (City Lights) is a series of short stories, showing Goethe's interest in the supernatural.

Johann Jacob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen   Simplicius Simplicissimus (Dedalus). This massive, brilliantly witty semi-autobiographical novel, at long last available in a reliable translation, is one of the high points of seventeenth-century European literature. Set against the uncertainties of the Thirty Years War, it charts the story of its hero from boyhood to middle age.

Gerhart Hauptmann   Lineman Thiel and Other Stories (Angel). These three remarkable stories, written towards the end of the nineteenth century, anticipate Freud in their psychological penetration, and the techniques of the cinema in their use of strong visual symbols.

Johann Peter Hebel   The Treasure Chest (Penguin). A wonderful collection of moral tales, anecdotes, jokes, reports of murders, disasters and mysteries, all originally written for inclusion in a popular religious almanac.

Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann   Tales of Hoffmann (Penguin), The Best Tales of Hoffmann (Dover). These selections of work by the schizophrenic master of fantasy and the macabre overlap slightly, but each features only one of his two greatest masterpieces; Penguin has Mademoiselle de Scudéry , the world's first detective story, while Dover includes the nightmarish allegory, The Golden Pot , in Thomas Carlyle's inspired translation. The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr (Penguin) is a full-scale novel on the author's favourite theme of two juxtaposed stories, in this case the supposed memoirs of a cat and and a musician clearly modelled on Hoffmann himself.

Heinrich von Kleist   The Marquise of O and Other Stories (Penguin). Like Hoffmann, who was only one year older, Kleist was one of the all-time greats of short-story writing. His eight tales range in length from three to one hundred pages, but they're all equally compelling.

Frank G. Ryder (ed.) German Romantic Stories (Continuum). A marvellous anthology which includes three of the classic novellas of German Romanticism: Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing by Joseph von Eichendorff, Undine by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué and The Strange Story of Peter Schlemihl by Adelbert von Chamisso.

Jeffrey L. Sammons (ed.) German Novellas of Realism (Continuum). Another fine collection, including two exquisite prose idylls by writers better known as poets: The Jew's Beech by Annette von Droste-Hülshoff and Mozart on the Way to Prague by Eduard Mörike.

Theodor Storm   The Dykemaster (Angel). Powerful short novel, set against the bleak western coastline of Schleswig-Holstein, about the inventor of a new type of dyke who is demonized by the self-centred community which opposes him. Hans and Heinz Kirch (Angel), a novella about a father-son conflict in a family of Baltic merchants, is the lead title in an anthology which includes two of the author's finest short stories.