Author Guide · Modernist Fiction
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On Christmas Day 1956, children found the body of a 78-year-old man in a snowy field near Herisau, in eastern Switzerland. He had gone out alone for a walk from the psychiatric clinic where he had lived since 1933, and where he had stopped writing altogether. He was Robert Walser, who had published three novels in Berlin before he was 32, whose short prose Franz Kafka read aloud to friends, and who later filled 526 loose sheets with pencil script so small it was taken for a secret code. Most of his work was rediscovered only after his death. This guide covers his eleven key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 11 key books · 1904–1985 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Robert Walser published 15 books in his lifetime. The best known are the novels Jakob von Gunten (1909), The Tanners (1907) and The Assistant (1908), the long story The Walk (1917) and the posthumous novel The Robber (written in 1925, published in 1972). Start with The Walk: it is short and contains most of what makes him distinctive.
Where to Start with Robert Walser
If you want a short first taste
→ The Walk (1917) — his best-known piece of short prose, readable in one sitting.
If you want his most famous novel
→ Jakob von Gunten (1909) — the diary of a pupil at a school for servants.
If you want a novel with a household and a plot
→ The Assistant (1908) — a year as an inventor’s assistant above Lake Zurich.
If you want the late, strange Walser
→ The Robber (1972) — the novel found in pencil microscript after his death.
11 Robert Walser Books, in Order
Fritz Kocher’s Essays
His first book, Fritz Kochers Aufsätze, published by Insel Verlag in Leipzig while he was working as a bank clerk in Zurich. The short pieces are presented as the school compositions of a boy called Fritz Kocher, on subjects such as nature, friendship and the city. The first edition carried illustrations by his brother, the painter Karl Walser.
The Tanners
Geschwister Tanner, his first novel, written in Berlin in 1906–1907 and published by Bruno Cassirer. Simon Tanner, the youngest of the Tanner siblings, drifts from job to job, quits a bookshop within a few pages, and spends a winter with his sister Hedwig, a village schoolteacher, until she sends him away. Susan Bernofsky’s English translation (New Directions, 2009) includes W. G. Sebald’s essay on Walser.
The Assistant
Der Gehülfe follows Joseph, who arrives one rainy Monday morning at the hilltop villa of the engineer and inventor Tobler, above Lake Zurich, to work as his assistant. He enjoys the view, the meals and Frau Tobler’s company while the household slides towards financial ruin. It is the most conventionally plotted of his novels.
Jakob von Gunten
Written as the diary of Jakob, a young man from a good family who enrols at the Benjamenta Institute, a school for servants where the pupils learn rules by heart and the teachers are never seen. Walser had himself attended a school for servants in 1905 before working as a servant at Schloss Dambrau in Upper Silesia. Christopher Middleton’s English translation appeared in 1969; the Brothers Quay adapted it as Institute Benjamenta (1995), with Mark Rylance as Jakob.
Kleine Dichtungen
A collection of short prose pieces prepared for Kurt Wolff Verlag after his return from Berlin to Biel. On Hermann Hesse’s recommendation it won the first prize awarded by the Women’s League to Honour Rhineland Poets, and a second impression followed in 1915.
The Walk
Der Spaziergang: a writer leaves his room one morning and walks through a small town and out into the countryside, recording the people and places he meets along the way, including a visit to the tax office, where he argues that walking is part of his work. First published in 1917 by Huber in Frauenfeld, it appeared in a revised version in 1920. Suhrkamp, his German publisher, calls it the masterpiece of his short prose.
Poetenleben
A sequence of short prose pieces about a poet’s life and wanderings in nature, written during his years in Biel, where he lived in an attic room at the Hotel Blaues Kreuz. It was published by Huber, the publisher of The Walk.
Seeland
Prose pieces set in the lake country around Biel, his home region, published by Rascher in Zurich (and later backdated to 1919). It contains the revised version of The Walk. It was among the last books he wrote in Biel before moving to Bern in 1921.
Die Rose
Published by Rowohlt in Berlin, the only book to come out of his Bern years and the last he published in his lifetime. In this period he wrote mainly short pieces for the feuilleton pages of newspapers, moving between rented rooms.
The Robber
Der Räuber, written in Bern in 1925 in a tiny pencil script on 24 sheets and found untitled after his death. Jochen Greven transcribed it and published it in 1972. The narrator writes about the “robber”, an idle, maladjusted man in Bern, and his failures with women, with long digressions. Susan Bernofsky’s English translation appeared in 2000.
Aus dem Bleistiftgebiet
The texts on the 526 loose sheets he covered in microscopic pencil writing in Bern, once thought to be a secret code. Bernhard Echte and Werner Morlang deciphered them and published them in six volumes between 1985 and 2000. A selection appeared in English as Microscripts (New Directions, 2010), translated by Susan Bernofsky.
In What Order to Read Robert Walser
None of Walser’s books continues another, so you can read them in any order. Publication order shows how his work changed: three novels about young men in service written in Berlin, then a decade of short prose from Biel, then the compressed, digressive pieces of Bern that he wrote in pencil and mostly never published.
Begin with The Walk, then read Jakob von Gunten. If you like them, The Tanners and The Assistant show him at novel length. Leave The Robber and the microscripts until last: they make most sense once you know his earlier voice.
A reading path
1. The Walk (1917)
2. Jakob von Gunten (1909)
3. The Assistant (1908)
4. The Tanners (1907)
5. The Robber (1972)
Everything Else Robert Walser Published
Beyond the 11 key books: 8 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Other books published in his lifetime
6
6 books · 1909–1920
- 1909Gedichtehis poems, published by Bruno Cassirer
- 1913Aufsätzeshort prose, Kurt Wolff Verlag
- 1914Geschichtenstories, Kurt Wolff Verlag
- 1916Prosastückeshort prose, Rascher Verlag
- 1917Kleine Prosashort prose, Francke Verlag
- 1920Komödiehis dramatic sketches, Bruno Cassirer
English selections
2
2 books · 1982–2016
- 1982Selected StoriesChristopher Middleton’s pioneering English selection
- 2016Girlfriends, Ghosts, and Other Storiestranslated by Tom Whalen, Nicole Köngeter and Annette Wiesner
The years · 1878–1956
Quick facts about Robert Walser
- Known for
- Short, digressive prose about walkers, clerks and servants that Kafka admired, and the tiny pencil “microscripts” he wrote before falling silent in a psychiatric clinic
- 1878
- Born in Biel, Switzerland
- 1909
- Jakob von Gunten
- 1921
- Moves to Bern; the microscript years
- 1933
- Moved to the clinic at Herisau; stops writing
- 1956
- Dies on a walk in the snow, 25 December
- Born
- 15 April 1878, Biel, Switzerland, the seventh of eight children
- Worked
- Bank clerk in Biel and Zurich; servant at Schloss Dambrau, 1905
- Lived
- Berlin 1905–1913, Biel 1913–1921, Bern from 1921
- Family
- His brother Karl Walser, a painter, illustrated his first book
- Clinics
- Waldau, Bern, from 1929; Herisau from 1933 until his death
- Died
- 25 December 1956, near Herisau, on a solitary walk
- Archive
- Robert Walser-Zentrum, Bern
The red mark is 1909: Jakob von Gunten, his novel about a school for servants.
How Robert Walser Writes: Small Things, Long Sentences
Walser’s books run on mood and association rather than plot. J. M. Coetzee described his prose as lucid in its syntax, casually mixing the lofty and the banal, and following an unsettling logic of paradox; he concluded that Walser was more an essayist than a storyteller. A typical piece starts from something small, a walk, a job interview, a meal, and lets the narrator talk his way around it.
His narrators are almost always on the bottom rung: clerks, assistants, pupils at a school for servants, a man out walking with nothing to do. Many of them seem to want to stay there. Walser drew directly on his own jobs, from the bank in Biel to the servants’ school and Schloss Dambrau, and on the rented rooms he lived in for most of his life.
Writers noticed him early. Max Brod recorded Kafka reading Walser’s sketches aloud, and when Robert Musil reviewed Kafka’s first book he called Kafka “a peculiar case of the Walser type”. Walter Benjamin wrote an essay on him in 1929, and W. G. Sebald and Elias Canetti were later among his advocates. Late in life Walser himself said he should have mixed in “a little lofty romanticism, as Hermann Hesse did”.
Frequently asked questions about Robert Walser’s books
How many books has Robert Walser written?
Walser published 15 books in his lifetime, from Fritz Kocher’s Essays (1904) to Die Rose (1925): three novels, a book of poems, a book of dramatic sketches and ten collections of short prose. The novel The Robber and the microscripts were published after his death; two further novels, Tobold and Theodor, are lost.
What are Robert Walser’s books in order?
The key books are Fritz Kocher’s Essays (1904), The Tanners (1907), The Assistant (1908), Jakob von Gunten (1909), Kleine Dichtungen (1914), The Walk (1917), Poetenleben (1918), Seeland (1920), Die Rose (1925), The Robber (1972) and Aus dem Bleistiftgebiet (1985–2000).
Where should I start with Robert Walser?
With The Walk (1917), a long story about a writer’s walk through a small town and its countryside. It is short, and it shows his voice, humour and digressions at their clearest. Then read Jakob von Gunten.
What is Robert Walser’s most famous book?
Jakob von Gunten (1909), the diary of a pupil at a school for servants, is his best-known novel. Of his short prose, The Walk is the most famous piece.
What are the microscripts?
Pencil drafts Walser wrote in Bern from the 1920s in a miniature version of the old German Kurrent script, on 526 loose sheets of scrap paper. They were long thought to be unreadable. Bernhard Echte and Werner Morlang deciphered them and published them as Aus dem Bleistiftgebiet (1985–2000); The Robber is among them.
Why did Robert Walser stop writing?
After a mental crisis he entered the Waldau asylum in Bern in 1929, where he still wrote. In 1933 he was moved against his will to the clinic at Herisau, placed under guardianship and gave up literary work. When the writer Carl Seelig encouraged him to write again, Walser told him: “I’m not here to write, I’m here to be mad.”
How did Robert Walser die?
He died on 25 December 1956, aged 78, on a solitary walk in the snow from the clinic at Herisau. Children found his body in a snowy field.
Has Jakob von Gunten been filmed?
Twice: as a German television film directed by Peter Lilienthal in 1971, and as Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life (1995) by the Brothers Quay, with Mark Rylance as Jakob and Alice Krige as Lisa Benjamenta.
Is Robert Walser related to Martin Walser?
No. Martin Walser was a German novelist born in 1927; Robert Walser was Swiss and born in 1878. The family member who matters for his books is his brother, the painter Karl Walser.
Who translated Robert Walser into English?
Christopher Middleton translated Jakob von Gunten (1969) and a Selected Stories (1982). Susan Bernofsky has translated The Robber, The Tanners, The Assistant, The Walk and Microscripts, and wrote the biography Clairvoyant of the Small (2021).
Footnotes
- Robert Walser — Robert Walser-Zentrum
- A chronology — Robert Walser-Zentrum
- The Genius of Robert Walser — J. M. Coetzee, The New York Review of Books, 2000
- I’m here to be mad — Christopher Benfey, London Review of Books, 2018
- Jakob von Gunten — Wikipedia
- The Robber (novel) — Wikipedia
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“I’m not here to write, I’m here to be mad.”
— Robert Walser to Carl Seelig at Herisau, recorded in Seelig’s Wanderungen mit Robert Walser (1957)
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