About E. T. A. Hoffmann
Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann (1776–1822), best known by his pen name E. T. A. Hoffman, was one of the major writers in the Romantic movement in literature. Born on January 24, 1776, in Königsberg, Prussia, he was the youngest of three children. He also was known as a jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman, and caricaturist. His most famous story is “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” first published in 1816. The story inspired Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s 1892 ballet The Nutcracker. Hoffmann died in Berlin, Germany on June 25, 1822, at the age of 46.