The novella from the Age of Realism does not represent literary reality, but literary artificiality. It is characterised by an aesthetic quality which until now has only been commented on marginally. The novellas display 'artfulness' by continuing the Romantic programme through strategies of aestheticisation of both a formal nature (e.g. framing) and a substantive kind (e.g. logical inconsistencies). ?Poetry of poetry’ is taken seriously as a guideline and runs counter to the efforts of the Realists to picture reality.