Freiherr de Friedrich Heinrich Karl La Motte-Fouqué 1 hr 33 min read

The water-maiden Undine, beautiful as the dawn on the waves yet cold and soulless, comes to earth to seek the one thing she lacks, a soul, which only a mortal's love can give her.

La Motte-Fouqué's 1811 novella, here retold for children by Mary Macgregor, is a foundational classic of Romantic fantasy. Lyrical, poignant, enchanting. Read it for a beautifully illustrated young readers' version of the immortal fairy tale, the tender, tragic romance of a soulless water-nymph and the knight she loves, a story that enchanted the whole nineteenth century.

In its time

Published in 1811, during the 1810s, frankenstein's decade.

Reading it

1 hr 33 min read (a novella, a full arc in one sitting or two).

Illustrated by

Katharine Cameron