(Born Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann, changed third name to Amadeus) German short story writer, novella writer, novelist, and music critic.

Composer, musician, and artist E. T. A. Hoffmann is best known as a writer of bizarre and fantastic fiction. Drawing from English Gothic romance, eighteenth-century Italian comedy, the psychology of the abnormal, and the occult, he created a world in which everyday life is infused with the supernatural. Hoffmann's tales were influential in the nineteenth century throughout Europe and America. Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Baudelaire, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Heinrich Heine, and George Meredith are among the authors who derived plots, characters, and motifs from Hoffmann.

Biographical Information

The child of estranged parents, Hoffmann lived with his uncle, a pragmatic civil servant who did not encourage his nephew's prodigious talents. Hoffmann studied law and accepted a government appointment, but cared...