Selected Stories

How to place the mysterious Swiss writer Robert Walser, a humble genius who possessed one of the most elusive and surprising sensibilities in modern literature? Walser is many things: a Paul Klee in words, maker of droll, whimsical, tender, and heartbreaking verbal artifacts; an inspiration to such very different writers as Kafka and W.G. Sebald; an amalgam, as Susan Sontag suggests in her preface to this volume, of Stevie Smith and Samuel Beckett.

This collection gathers forty-two of Walser's stories. Encompassing everything from journal entries, notes on literature, and biographical sketches to anecdotes, fables, and visions, it is an ideal introduction to this fascinating writer of whom Hermann Hesse famously declared, "If he had a hundred thousand readers, the world would be a better place."

"Walser is one of the most remarkable and fully realized stylists in modern literature. He has the rarest of gifts, the ability to get the spirit onto the page at the flick of the pen." The Nation

"Here are stories to be read slowly and savored, a volume filled with lovely and disturbing moments that will stay with the reader for some time to come." New York Times

"Robert Walser is a bewitched genius....Terse and solid, Walser's prose is touched always with pain and laughter, peppered with irony and question marks, filled with loving lists of mundane objects, punctuated by startling fits of chaos." Newsweek

"The good and beautiful dances hand in hand while a reassuring lie unfolds....If Kafka's neutrality widens our eyes with horror and surprise, Walser's depictions, always working within what is socially given, are equally revealing. The effect is complex, and wholly his own." William H. Gass

"Few, indeed realize what this 'short form'...is all about; how many hopeful butterflies can find refuge in its modest chalices from the cliff face of so-called great literature. And the others have no idea how much, amid the sterile jungle of the newspapers, they owe the gentle or prickly blossoms of Walser." Walter Benjamin

"These prose pieces written between 1907 and 1929 convey a sensibility that was well ahead of its time....The longest piece in the collection ('The Walk') belongs on any short list of great twentieth-century stories." Time

How to place the mysterious Swiss writer Robert Walser, a humble genius who possessed one of the most elusive and surprising sensibilities in modern literature? Walser is many things: a Paul Klee in words, maker of droll, whimsical, tender, and heartbreaking verbal artifacts; an inspiration to such very different writers as Kafka and W.G. Sebald; an amalgam, as Susan Sontag suggests in her preface to this volume, of Stevie Smith and Samuel Beckett.

This collection gathers forty-two of Walser's stories. Encompassing everything from journal entries, notes on literature, and biographical sketches to anecdotes, fables, and visions, it is an ideal introduction to this fascinating writer of whom Hermann Hesse famously declared, "If he had a hundred thousand readers, the world would be a better place."

Response to a Request

Flower Days

Trousers

Two Strange Stories

Balloon Journey

Kleist in Thum

The Job Application

The Boat

A Little Ramble

Helbling's Story

The Little Berliner

Nervous

The Walk

So! "I've Got You"

Nothing at All

Kienast

Poests

Frau Wilke

The Street

Snowdrops

Winter

The She-Owl

Knocking

Titus

Vladimir

Parisian Newspapers

The Monkey

Dostoevsky's Idiot

Am I Dreaming?

The Little Tree

Stork and Porcupine

A Contribution to the Celebration of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer

A Sort of Speech

A Letter to Therese Breitbach

A Village Tale

The Aviator

The Pimp

Masters and Workers

Essay on Freedom

A Biedermeier Story

The Honeymoon

Thoughts on Cezanne

Robert Walser (1878-1956) left school at fourteen and led a wandering, precarious existence while producing poems, essays, stories, and novels. In 1933 he entered an insane asylum — he remained there for the rest of his life — and quit writing. "I am not here to write," he said, "but to be mad."