Michael Kohlhaas

by Heinrich von Kleist

A short novel out of early nineteenth century Germany, set in an age of horse fairs, walled towns, and small princes who kept their own courts. Since its first appearance, it has been read as one of the strictest studies ever written of justice, and of what a man may become when justice is refused him. To read it is to feel the law itself bend under the weight of a single wrong, and to understand why this small book has never stopped troubling its readers.