Page:German Stories (Volumes 1–2).djvu/13

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Introduction.
vii

reason to regret an accidental collision in this instance between the present writer, and the author of several spirited translations which came out at Glasgow some time after the first of these volumes had gone to press. For the rest, it is believed that they are as yet wholly new to the English public.

“Scharfenstein Castle,” is by the Baroness de la Motte Fouqué, whose story of the “Cypress Wreath” appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine for 1819, and was not only reprinted in other periodicals, but converted into a popular tract, and circulated over England. “Rolandsitten,” (another of Hoffmann’s,) though it seems to have been very hastily written, contains an exuberance of plot, from which, if the materials were subjected to a process of remodelling, three separate dramas or tales might be constructed.

“George Selding,” had the scene been changed