Night Pieces


Night Pieces is a collection of eight stories by the Prussian writer E. T. A. Hoffmann, published in two volumes in 1816 and 1817.

Contents

First volume
Second volume

Publication

Hoffmann began to work on Night Pieces in November 1815. It followed the model established with his previous collection Fantasy Pieces in Callot's Manner and was presented on the title page as "published by the author of Fantasy Pieces in Callot's Manner". It was published by in Berlin. The first volume appeared in September 1816—with 1817 printed as its year—and the second in the summer of 1817.

Reception

Although Fantasy Pieces in Callot's Manner had been successful, Night Pieces was largely ignored among Germans upon the publication. The first volume received a single, negative review in Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung and the second received no printed reviews. In private correspondences, praised "The Sandman" as an inspired story but dismissed the rest of the collection for its "shudder and horror", and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe assumed it was a result of opium abuse. Night Pieces received a much more positive reception in Russia and France. Several of the individual stories eventually attracted significant analysis and "The Sandman" became one of Hoffmann's most famous works.