For all those who have always shied away from the sheer length of the original Urs Widmer has carefully abridged the wonderful Tales From the Arabian Nights while preserving their oriental flavour. Highly vivid and amusing, he recounts the six most famous tales of the immortal Sheherazade: The Fisherman and the Jinni, Alibaba and the Forty Thieves, Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, The Magic Horse, The Adventures of Haroun-al-Raschid, and Sinbad the Sailor.
As Hermann Hesse pointed out, the original of this great collection of fairytales is »a source of infinite pleasures and the most opulent picture book in the world«. To ensure that this holds true, Tatjana Hauptmann has richly illustrated this work, conveying Oriental lavishness and subtlety.

»The twilight of evening. Big flakes of wet snow are whirling lazily about the street lamps, which have just been lighted, and lying in a thin soft layer on roofs, horses' backs, shoulders, caps. Iona Potapov, the sledge-driver, is all white like a ghost. He sits on the box without stirring, bent as double as the living body can be bent.«
Thus begins the story of a sledge-driver and his horse. The story referred to in the title is about the dachshund Kashtanka who, having lost his master, discovers the colourful world of the circus. Grisha, a tubby little boy, goes walking out on the boulevard with his nurse for the first time in his life. And when Major-General Buldeeff is suffering from toothache, everyone searches desperately for a »horsey name.«
Chekhov's stories have been referred to as a fin de siècle encyclopaedia of Russian life. They are the illustrated newspaper of his times, based on Chekhov's observations of everything and everyone: the middle classes, officials, the aristocracy – but animals too, and miracle-workers and, last but not least, children.

The little plastic dinosaur – gone. Karl's left goalkeeper's glove – missing. The new umbrella cover – lost without a trace. Karl is always losing things. ›You have to start looking after your things better!‹ say his parents. That is what Kasper says too. Kasper is Karl's best friend – a hand puppet who comes to life when he puts his hand in it. But that does not help Karl. Things come to a head when he loses Kasper in the park. Karl sets out on an expedition for somewhere, there must exist a place where all the lost things end up. And Karl does not mean the lost property office. One night, under a full moon, his little dog Timo puts him on the right track... An adventurous story about how you sometimes have to lose (almost) everything to find the thing that's most important.

The artist Tatjana Hauptmann, recipient of many international awards, spent several years working on her meticulous illustrations of ›The Great Book of Legends‹. The Best Medieval Legends of Gods, Heroes and Knights, edited by Johannes Carstensen. The result is two beautiful volumes, the first of which has now been issued. The unique drawings and colour plates breathe life into the world of the Nibelungen, King Arthur, Robin Hood, Tristan and Isolde and many others, and take us to a land of fantasy which it is always a joy to visit.