HOFFMANN, ERNEST THEOD. AMADEUS, properly WILHELM, one of the most orig• inal German story-tellers, was born Jan. 24, 1776, at KOnigsberg in Prussia. Ile studied law there, and then found employment in the government offices at Gross glogau and in Berlin. In 1800 he became assessor to the government of Posen; but in consequence of some able caricatures of his, which gen. Zastrow and others in high positions applied to themselves, he Was removed in 1802, as councilor to Flock, and in 1803, in the same capacity to Warsaw, where the entrance of the French ended his career. Without prospects of fortune, he made use of his knowledge of music as a means of livelihood, and, though sometimes reduced to great straits, managed to sup port himself by giving music lessons, and by contributing to the Musical Gazette of Leipsic. In 1813 he went to Dresden as music director to a company of players alternating between Dresden and Leipsic, and continued to conduct the orchestra of the company till 1815. In 1816 he was again appointed by Prussia to be councilor in the royal supreme court of judicature at Berlin, where, before long, lie was seized with a disease in his back, the consequence of his irregular life, and after much suffering, died July 24, 1822. From his youth he had devoted all his leisure hours to the study of
music. The Pliantasiestileke in Callas .Ifanier, Elixire des Toilets, Nachtstiielce, Die Serapionsbritder Lebensansicleten des Rater Mu•r, Der Doppelglinger, and a few shorter stories, all appeared between 1814 and 1824. Hoffmann was a man of thorough origi nality, and yet an excellent man of business, and lawyer. He had a keen understand ing, but was full of fantastic ideas, and a believer in demons. His character was made up of incongruities; and between like contradictory extremes his novels range. His fame rests mainly on his novelettes, which are masterpieces in miniature, such as Das Ifajo•at, F•itulein Sczatery Doge u. Dogaresse. Hoffmann's talents were wonderfully various; he not only distinguished himself as a poet and composer, but as a carica turist. He handled language in a masterly way, although not free from mannerism. A collection of his choice works appeared in 1828 (10 vols.), and one of his collected works in 1857 (12 vols.). See Hitzig, Aus Hoffmann's Leben and Naehlass (1823). In foreign countries, particularly in France, Hoffmann has been repeatedly translated and imitated.