For many reasons, Mademoiselle de Scudéri is considered one of Hoffmann's greatest novellas, not the least of which is its splendid and exciting plot.
In his introduction to one of the earliest complete editions of Hoffmann's works, Ellinger (1925, 33-34) presents a cogent analysis of the plot of Mademoiselle de Scudéri: "[Hoffmann's first goal was to remove] Wagenseil's report from the realm of the anecdotal.