The essay "The Storyteller: Reflections on the Works of Nikolai Leskov" (1936) presents a definitive exposition of the concept of epic narrative that Walter Benjamin had been developing since the late 1920s. It is followed by essays, notes, and reviews written between 1929 and 1933, which reveal various approaches to this concept. The book concludes with a selection of rough drafts concerning the theory of narrative—dating from the period between 1928 and 1935—and the translator’s afterword, "Storytelling as a Form of History."