The work presents selected narratives by E.T.A. Hoffmann and Heinrich von Kleist under the overarching concept of subversive storytelling, placing them in an analytical context. Both at the level of the narrated world and in terms of the act of storytelling itself, extensive overlaps between the works become apparent, even though they appear divergent on their stylistic surface. This is particularly true for the aspect of narrative unreliability: the study provides a systematic approach to this phenomenon in both authors for the first time within the research. Additionally, motifs such as temporal and spatial ambiguity, identity, the dissolution of a fixed subject structure, and the multiplication of narrative discourse are comprehensively present in both narrative works. In this way, the texts of Heinrich von Kleist and E.T.A. Hoffmann are interconnected.