Written in 1816 by one of the leaders of the German Romantic Movement for his children. The Nutcracker captures better than any other story a child's wonder at Christmas. Since its publication, it has inspired hundreds of artists and adaptations, most notably Alexander Dumas pSre's fable of the same name and the legendary ballet, scored by Russian composer Tchaikovsky. Today the Nutcracker continues to influence the magic of Christmas from sugar plums to mistletoe, the power of the story continues to cast a spell on readers.
Author Biography
E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776-1822) was one of the major figures of European Romanticism, specializing in tales of the fantastical and uncanny. He was also a music critic, jurist, composer and caricaturist. His Tales of Hoffmann, available in Penguin Classics, includes such masterpieces as 'Mademoiselle de Scudery', one of the earliest example of crime fiction, and Hoffmann's terrifying version of 'The Sandman'. Joachim Neugroschel won three PEN translation awards and the French-American Foundation Translation Prize. He translated Thomas Mann's Death in Venice and Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Furs, among other works, for Penguin Classics.
