"Night Stories" by the German writer, composer and artist E.T.A. Hoffman (1776-1822), who created his own special aesthetics, are published in full in Russian for the first time. They combine works that reflect Hoffmann’s interest in the “night side of the soul,” in the subconscious, irrational in the human psyche. Hoffmann is attracted by the theme of madness, crime, mysterious, pathological states of mind. This is a whole world where the real and the unreal are intricately mixed, ghostly, fantastic images reign, and an inevitable mystical principle reigns over all events and destinies. This is a poetic consolidation of the unknown and mysterious, perceived and felt in life, influencing human destinies, disturbing the mind and imagination.