E. T. A. Hoffmann

Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (Königsberg, 1776 – Berlin, 1822) was a Prussian writer who worked as a jurist for most of his life, though he was also a composer, draughtsman and music critic. A leading figure of German Romanticism, he is remembered above all for stories and novellas in which the supernatural sits alongside sharp psychological observation. His work helped shape the modern horror tale and the detective story.

He was born into a family of lawyers. After his parents separated in 1778, he was raised by his mother's relatives, a strict pietist household where he never got on with his domineering uncle. Despite an early gift for drawing and music, he studied law at Königsberg and built a career as a civil servant that took him through several towns in Prussia and Poland. His years in Warsaw, around 1804 to 1807, were by his own account the happiest of his life. Napoleon's invasion in 1806 cost him his post and forced him back to Berlin, where he struggled financially.

Between 1808 and 1813 he worked in the theatre at Bamberg as stage manager, director and set designer, living entirely from the arts. He then moved to Leipzig and Dresden before settling again in Berlin. Around 1814 he began to establish himself as an author with the Fantasy Pieces, a collection of short novels that also contained music criticism and his own illustrations. That same period brought him success with The Devil's Elixirs, a novel about the double and guilt. His style blends the grotesque and the uncanny with a firm psychological realism. Many of his tales feature sinister figures who break into everyday life and expose the tragic or absurd sides of human nature.

In his last years, fame went hand in hand with heavy drinking and syphilis, which wore down his health. In 1822 he suffered a stroke and dictated much of his later work to secretaries and to his wife. He died in Berlin on 25 June 1822.

His legacy is wide. He influenced Edgar Allan Poe, Théophile Gautier and Charles Nodier, and he is often linked with Kafka as well. His stories became the basis of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker, Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann and Schumann's Kreisleriana. He is known more for his writing than for his music, though his contemporaries valued him as a composer too.