Master Flea
E. T. A. Hoffmann, 1822
A misanthropic bachelor, a flea with a doctorate in philosophy, and a magic lens that shows what people are thinking: Hoffmann's strangest comic fairy tale about love and microscopes.
E. T. A. Hoffmann
1776–1822
Hoffmann was a Berlin judge who also composed an opera, wrote music criticism and drew caricatures. Master Flea was the last prose work he finished, published the year he died.
Feels like wonder, war and unease.
The strange loneliness of the person who arranges other people's joy.
It was the kind and laudable practice of Mr. Tyss to surprise some needy family, where he knew there were children, with his whole cargo of Christmas boxes, just as he had purchased it, and dream himself for a few hours into the happy times of boyhood. Then, when the children were in the height of their joy, he would softly steal away and wander about the streets half the night, hardly knowing what to do with himself, from the deep emotions which straitened his breast, and feeling his own house like a vault, in which he was buried with all his pleasures. Books by E. T. A. Hoffmann
Authors with a similar feel
Read pages from books like this, one at a time
BookFeed is a feed of real passages from real books. It learns what moves you and finds your next book.
Open BookFeedFree, no sign-up.