Table of Contents

"The Earthquake in Chile"; "The Marquise of O--"; "Michael Kohlhaas"; "The Beggarwoman of Locarno"; "St Cecilia or The Power of Music"; "The Betrothal in Santo Domingo"; "The Foundling"; "The Duel"

About the Author

HEINRICH VON KLEIST was born in 1777 in Frankfurt, Germany, to a Prussian military family. He was placed into military service at fifteen, fought against the French, and resigned his commission at twenty-one. Unable to obtain a civil service job, he established one of Germany's first daily newspapers, which failed, and he traveled extensively through a Europe engulfed by the Napoleonic Wars. He was hospitalized for several mysterious illnesses, including surgery for an indeterminate sexual problem that led him to break off a marital engagement. Throughout, he wrote revolutionary plays and stories, such as Penthesilea and The Marquise of O-, embracing realism and rejecting the ideals of eminent German humanists such as Goethe. As part of a suicide pact, Kleist shot dead a terminally-ill friend, then himself, In 1811.