The Novelettes arose at roughly the same time as the Kinderszenen and share the same largely untroubled mood. Writing to Clara Wieck, Schumann could exclaim "I’ve written such a frightful amount of music for you over the past three weeks - pranks, Egmontian tales, family scenes with fathers, a wedding, in short, extremely engaging things." Small wonder that the opus is one of Henle’s best-selling items. This thoroughly revised volume offers not only a newly edited musical text, but a preface with background material on the work’s genesis and a detailed section of editorial notes.?