Authors

German · 1776–1822

E. T. A. Hoffmann

E. T. A. Hoffmann was a German Romantic author, composer, and music critic whose supernatural tales — The Sandman, The Golden Pot, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King — became the defining works of German literary Romanticism and profoundly influenced literature across Europe. He was also a practicing lawyer and a gifted music critic who wrote under the name 'Johannes Kreisler.' Offenbach's opera Les Contes d'Hoffmann is based on three of his tales; Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker ballet derives from his story. Freud used The Sandman as his central example of the uncanny.