Adelbert von Chamisso 1 hr 21 min read

A young man sells his shadow to a mysterious gray stranger for a bottomless purse of gold, and discovers too late what it means to walk the world without a shadow.

This Esperanto edition presents Chamisso's 1814 'Peter Schlemihl,' the classic German fable of a man who trades his shadow. Haunting, resonant, foundational. Read it for one of the great parables of the fantastic, a tale of a fatal bargain and its lonely consequences.

In its time

Published in 1922, during the 1920s, the pulp era proper.

Reading it

1 hr 21 min read (a novella, a full arc in one sitting or two).