Peter Schlemihl

"I know there is, from manifold experience -- a genius that takes charge of every printed book and delivers it into the appropriate hands, and if not always, yet very often keeps at home the undeserving: that genius holds the key to every true production of heart and soul, and opens and closes it with never-failing dexterity.

"To this genius, my much beloved Schlemihl! I confide thy smiles and thy tears, and thus to God commend them."

Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué

The tale of Peter Schlemiel's mad bargain to sell his shadow to the Devil for a bottomless wallet -- only to find that a man without a shadow is an outcast -- is a classic. No good comes of Schlemiel's bargain, of course. What would one expect from a man whose name is Yiddish for a bungler? The woman he loves rejects him, and he spends the rest of his life wandering the world. But underneath the silliness of that, there's something wonderful and poignant here. It's the reason this tale is a classic.