A Fragment from the Life of Three Friends (Fantasy and Horror Classics)

By E.T.A. Hoffmann

This early work by E. T. A. Hoffmann was originally published in 1818. Born in Königsberg, East Prussia in 1776, Hoffmann's family were all jurists, and during his youth he was initially encouraged to pursue a career in law. However, in his late teens Hoffman became increasingly interested in literature and philosophy, and spent much of his time reading German classicists and attending lectures by, amongst others, Immanuel Kant. Hoffman went on to produce a great range of both literary and musical works. Probably Hoffman's most well-known story, produced in 1816, is 'The Nutcracker and the Mouse King', due to the fact that - some seventy-six years later - it inspired Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker. In the same vein, his story 'The Sandman' provided both the inspiration for Léo Delibes's ballet Coppélia, and the basis for a highly influential essay by Sigmund Freud, called 'The Uncanny'. (Indeed, Freud referred to Hoffman as the "unrivalled master of the uncanny in literature.") Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900's and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Oct 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781473377394

Book preview

‘A Fragment of the Life of

Three Friends’

By

E. T. A. Hoffmann

Copyright © 2012 Read Books Ltd.

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without

the express permission of the publisher in writing

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Contents

E. T. A. Hoffman

‘A Fragment of the Life of Three Friends’

E. T. A. Hoffman

Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann was born in Königsberg, East Prussia in 1776. His family were all jurists, and during his youth he was initially encouraged to pursue a career in law. However, in his late teens Hoffman became increasingly interested in literature and philosophy, and spent much of his time reading German classicists and attending lectures by, amongst others, Immanuel Kant.

In was in his twenties, upon moving with his uncle to Berlin, that Hoffman first began to promote himself as a composer, writing an operetta called Die Maske and entering a number of playwriting competitions. Hoffman struggled to establish himself anywhere for a while, flitting between a number of cities and dodging the attentions of Napoleon’s occupying troops. In 1808, while living in Bamberg, he began his job as a theatre manager and a music critic, and Hoffman’s break came a year later, with the publication of Ritter Gluck. The story centred on a man who meets, or thinks he has met, a long-dead composer, and played into the ‘doppelgänger’ theme – at that time very popular in literature. It was shortly after this that Hoffman began to use the pseudonym E. T. A. Hoffmann, declaring the ‘A’ to stand for ‘Amadeus’, as a tribute to the great composer, Mozart.

Over the next decade, while moving between Dresden, Leipzig and Berlin, Hoffman produced a great range of both literary and musical works. Probably Hoffman’s most well-known story, produced in 1816, is ‘The Nutcracker and the Mouse King’, due to the fact that – some seventy-six years later - it inspired Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker. In the same vein, his story ‘The Sandman’ provided both the inspiration for Léo Delibes’s ballet Coppélia, and the basis for a highly influential essay by Sigmund Freud, called ‘The Uncanny’. (Indeed, Freud referred to Hoffman as the unrivalled master of the uncanny in literature.)

Alcohol abuse and syphilis eventually took a great toll on Hoffman though, and – having spent the last year of his life paralysed – he died in Berlin in 1822, aged just 46. His legacy is a powerful one, however: He is seen as a pioneer of both Romanticism and fantasy literature, and his novella, Mademoiselle de Scudéri: A Tale from the Times of Louis XIV is often cited as the first ever detective story.

‘A Fragment of the Life of Three Friends’

"One Whit Monday the ‘Webersche Zelt,’ a place of public resort in the Thiergarten, Berlin, was so densely crowded by people of every sort and kind that it was only by dint of unremitting and assiduous shouting, and the most dogged perseverance of pursuit, that Alexander succeeded in capturing a much-vexed and greatly-badgered waiter, and inducing him to set out a small table under the trees beside the water, where he, with his friends Severin and Marzell (who had managed, by the exercise of fine strategical talent, to possess themselves of a couple of chairs), sat down in the happiest possible frame of mind. It was only a few days since they had come back to Berlin. Alexander had arrived from a distant province to take possession of the heritage of an aunt deceased, and the two others had come back to resume the duties of their Government appointments, from which they had been absent for a considerable time on military duty, during the important campaign which was just at an end. This was the day when they had arranged to celebrate their reunion in famous style, and, as it often happens, it was the Present, with its doings and strivings, more than the eventful Past, that was occupying their minds.

"’I can assure you,’ said Alexander, taking up the steaming coffee-pot and filling the cups, ‘that if you saw me in my aunt’s old house--how I wander pathetically up and down the lofty chambers hung with gloomy tapestry; how Mistress Anne, my aunt’s former housekeeper, a little spectral-looking creature, comes in wheezing and coughing, carrying the pewter salver with my breakfast in her trembling arms, putting it down on the table with a curious backward-sliding curtsey, and then making her exit without a word, sighing, and scuffling along on slippers too large for her feet, like the beggar wife of Locarno, while the tom-cat and the pug, eying me with dubious glances, go out after her; how I then, with a low-spirited parrot scolding at me, and china mandarins nodding at me with scornful smiles, swallow cup after cup of the coffee, scarcely daring to desecrate this virginal chamber, where amber and mastic have been wont to shed their perfumes, with vulgar tobacco reek,--I say, if you were to see me in these circumstances, you would say I was under some spell of enchantment; you would regard me as a species of Merlin. I can assure you that the easy adaptability to circumstances which you have so often blamed me for was the sole cause of my having at once