Hardback. Four tales from Hoffmann, the influential writer of high German Romanticism, whose works at the time of the publication of this small collection had been out of print in solo book form for half a century. The works have been selected and revised by J. M. Cohen who also provides an introduction. They’re accompanied by Paul Gavarni’s atmospheric illustrations from the French 1843 edition. The five stories are: The Golden Pot, The Sandman (on which the ballet Coppélia is based), The Deed of Entail, The Story of Krespel, Mlle de Scuderi (an important influential early crime story). Hoffmann’s works have had a huge range of influence from the ballet and opera of Tchaikovsky and Offenbach, as well as on the rise of crime, mystery, gothic, macabre and fantasy fiction through the nineteenth century. The translations are by Thomas Carlyle, the dramatist John Oxenford, Major Alexander Ewing (husband of the children's writer Juliana Horatia Ewing) and J. M. Cohen. First edition thus. Prettily bound in beige cloth with green decoration to front and to spine. titles in red. cloth is very clean, bright and neat. Dust jacket which is also illustrated by Gavarni, is rather dust marked and with some foxing chipped to spine ends and with a small number of short closed tears.