Weird Tales

This issue is a two-volume German Romantic fantasy collection (Vol. I published 1885) featuring stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann. Contents include: "The Cremona Violin," about a mysterious instrument; "The Fermata," concerning an opera singer; "Signor Formica," a satirical tale; "The Sand-Man," a psychological narrative exploring perception and madness; and "The Entail," a generational saga. A translator's biographical essay documents Hoffmann's 1776 birth in Königsberg to separated parents, his childhood raised by relatives including an order-loving uncle who taught him music, and the literary influences that shaped his fantastic fiction—blending the supernatural with acute psychological observation of everyday life and social convention.