"Meyrink's short stories epitomized the non-plus-ultra of all modern writing. Their magnificent color, their spine-chilling and bizarre inventiveness, their aggression, their succinctness of style, their overwhelming originality of ideas which is so evident in every sentence and phrase that there seem to be no lacunae: all this captivated me, and seemed to me to provide the proper antidote to all the adjectival prose and shallow, false romanticism of the immediate preceding generation." Max Brod. "Gustav Meyrink's stories recall Gogol in their black, humorous vigor." The European