This is the first major collection of short stories from the legendary German–Jewish critic and philosopher Walter Benjamin (1892–1940). Benjamin is best known for his groundbreaking studies on culture and literature, including the collections Illuminations, One-Way Street and The Arcades Project, but here for the first time are gathered his experiments in fiction, with forms including novellas, fables, histories, aphorisms, parables, and riddles. As well as highlighting the themes that run throughout his work, the collection demonstrates that his singular style could create extraor-dinary imaginative worlds that will delight those who are fascinated by his thinking, as well as readers of literary fiction such as Franz Kafka and Stefan Zweig and the uncanny tales of E.T.A. Hoffmann.