SCHILLER'S CAREER AS A WRITER OF PROSE FICTION was short lived. It lasted only seven years, from 1782 (when he was twenty-two years of age) until 1789. Schiller's short stories of this period have begun to attract significant critical attention in recent years. However, even the texts that are today considered to be Schiller's major prose-writing achievements of the 1780s, notably “Der Verbrecher aus verlorener Ehre” (1786, The Criminal of Lost Honor) and Der Geisterseher (1786–89, The Spiritualist), remain to a large extent overshadowed by his simultaneous achievements as a dramatist and lyric poet. The period during which Schiller composed all of his published prose fiction coincided with the writing of his important early dramas Die Räuber (1781, The Robbers), Die Verschwörung des Fiesko zu Genua (1782–83, The Conspiracy of Fiesco at Genoa), Kabale und Liebe (1782–84, Intrigue and Love), and Don Karlos (1783–87).

The overshadowing of Schiller's prose writing by his dramas is truer still in the case of his shortest short stories, which will be the focus of this essay: “Eine großmütige Handlung aus der neusten Geschichte” (1782, A Magnanimous Act from Most Recent History); “Herzog von Alba bey einem Frühstück auf dem Schlosse zu Rudolstadt. Im Jahr 1547” (1788, Duke Alba's Breakfast at Rudolstadt Castle in the Year 1547); and “Spiel des Schicksals. Ein Bruchstück einer wahren Geschichte” (1789, Game of Fate. A Fragment of a True Story).