"These byproducts from [Schwitters,] a man who tried his hand at much else, and gained relatively little attention for any of it, who lived with his parents and then in the house he inherited from them in a no-account place in Germany, and then in exile, are among the few wonderful and imperishable things of the twentieth century."--Michael Hofmann, New York Review of Books "Jack Zipes has now usefully collected and translated a handy anthology of Schwitters short stories, written from 1918 to 1948, selecting those he considers to be 'oddly modern fairy tales.' ... Schwitters's Merz fairy tales are lies that speak the truth."--Peter Read, Times Literary Supplement "Mostly unpublished during Schwitters's lifetime, the tales have been rescued from oblivion by teams of eager Germanists, and selected, translated and introduced for this edition by eminent fairytale scholar Jack Zipes. The tales are accompanied by cutely sinister illustrations by Irvine Peacock."--Justin Clemens, The Australian "Including four pieces Schwitters wrote in English--he had abandoned German, as the Nazis' language--this volume stands as a substantial, chronologically representative, and delightful addition to the still small number of texts by Schwitters published in the U.S. Zipes supplies snappy translations and a thoughtful critical introduction."--Choice
