The Nutcracker and Mouse King (Fantasy and Horror Classics) - Hoffmann, E. T. A.

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Résumé :
This early work by E. T. A. Hoffmann was originally published in 1816. Born in K?nigsberg, East Prussia in 1776, Hoffmann's family were all jurists, and during his youth he was initially encouraged to pursue a career in law. However, in his late teens Hoffman became increasingly interested in literature and philosophy, and spent much of his time reading German classicists and attending lectures by, amongst others, Immanuel Kant. Hoffman went on to produce a great range of both literary and musical works. Probably Hoffman's most well-known story, produced in 1816, is 'The Nutcracker and the Mouse King', due to the fact that - some seventy-six years later - it inspired Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker. In the same vein, his story 'The Sandman' provided both the inspiration for L?o Delibes's ballet Copp?lia, and the basis for a highly influential essay by Sigmund Freud, called 'The Uncanny'. (Indeed, Freud referred to Hoffman as the unrivalled master of the uncanny in literature.) Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900's and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions....

Biographie:
Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann was a German novelist of fantasy and Gothic horror, as well as a jurist, composer, music critic, and artist. His stories serve as the foundation for Jacques Offenbach's opera The Tales of Hoffmann, in which Hoffmann appears as the hero (albeit substantially embellished). He also wrote the novella The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, which served as the basis for Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker. The ballet Coppelia is based on two additional stories by Hoffmann, while Schumann's Kreisleriana is based on Hoffmann's character Johannes Kreisler. Hoffmann's maternal and paternal ancestors were jurists. His father, Christoph Ludwig Hoffmann (1736-97), was an attorney in Konigsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia), as well as a poet and amateur violist. In 1767, he married his relative Lovisa Albertina Doerffer (1748-96). Ernst Theodor Wilhelm, born on 24 January 1776, was the youngest of three children, of whom the second died in infancy. Between 1781 and 1792, he attended the Lutheran school, or Burgschule, where he excelled in classical studies. He was taught sketching by Saemann and counterpoint by Podbileski, a Polish organist who would serve as the template for Abraham Liscot in Kater Murr....