Prussian-born E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822) was one of the most influential authors of the German Romantic era. An artistic polymath with a fierce passion for music, Hoffmann spent much of his life struggling to reconcile his career as a bureaucrat with his commitment to his art, and his stories, renowned for their combination of fantastic and macabre elements with twisting psychological realism, are often preoccupied with themes of artistic madness and the blurring of lines between the real and supernatural. His works exercised a profound influence on writers such as Balzac, Poe, Dostoevsky and Kafka, as well as composers such as Schumann, Offenbach and Tchaikovsky.