Author(s): Heinrich Von Kleist

Classic Fiction

Too short to be a novel, too long to be a short story, the novella is generally unrecognised by academics and publishers. Nonetheless, it is a form beloved and practiced by literature's greatest writers. In "The Art of the Novella" series, Melville House celebrates this renegade art form and its practitioners with titles that are, in many instances, presented in book form for the first time. Based on actual historic events, this thrilling saga of violence and retribution bridged the gap between medieval and modern literature, and speaks so profoundly to the contemporary spirit that it has been the basis of numerous plays, movies, and novels. It has become, in fact, a classic tale: that of the honorable man forced to take the law into his own hands. In this incendiary prototype, a minor tax dispute intensifies explosively, until the eponymous hero finds the forces of an entire kingdom, and even the great Martin Luther, gathered against him. But soon, even Luther comes to echo the growing army of peasants asking, Isn't Kohlhaas right? Widely acknowledged as one of the masterworks of German literature, "Michael Kohlhaas" is also one of the most stirring tales ever written of the quest for justice.