E T A Hoffmann (1776 - 1822) was born in Konigsberg and became one of the best known and influential authors of his time. He exploited the grotesque and the bizarre in a manner unmatched by any other Romantic writer. Jeremy Adler is Professor of German at King's College London. Anthea Bell has received many awards for her translations including the Mildred L. Batchelder Award in 1979, 1990 and 1995.
Hoffman is a supreme storyteller, and this is his funniest and most readable novel. First published in 1820, it is a light-hearted exploration of the romantic fascination with the individual and the imagination, with nature and the supernatural, and with art itself. Murr, a vain and bourgeois tomcat, is writing his memoirs, using as a blotting pad a biography of Kreisler, a moody but brilliant musician. By a printer's error the two lives are spliced together, commenting implicitly on each other. Hoffman's playfulness and experimentation introduced techniques that were later used by writers as various as Dickens, Kafka, Poe and Garcia Marquez. (Kirkus UK)