First published in September 1807 in Cotta's Morgenblatt für gebildete Stände, Das Erdbeben in Chili is widely regarded as one of Kleist's fictional masterpieces. Set against the historical backdrop of the earthquake that rocked Santiago on 13 May 1647, this is a daring and dramatic tale of thwarted love and extreme violence, within the brief compass of which Kleist manages to reflect on a broad variety of current theological, philosophical, and political controversies—from questions of the providential order and the bounds of physical and moral evil, to an exploration of the ethics of social change and the volatile psychological dynamics of fanaticism, demagoguery, and mob behavior.

The story revolves around the ill-fated relationship between Josephe Asteron, only daughter of the nobleman Don Henrico Asteron, and her bourgeois tutor Jeronimo Rugera—a motif that not only recalls the legend of Abelard and Heloise, but also, and perhaps more directly for contemporary readers, the world of Rousseau's The New Heloise and the parallel situation of his protagonists Julie and Saint-Preux. Here as there, the liaison across class lines calls forth the hostility of the young girl's father: upon learning of the affair, Don Henrico Asteron first has Jeronimo dismissed from his post, and then banishes Josephe to a Carmelite convent. Shortly after, however, the lovers contrive to meet up in the garden of the convent, and nine months later Josephe collapses on the steps of the cathedral during the Corpus Christi procession and gives birth to a child, Philipp.