Search results for ""Author E. T. A. Hoffmann""

Hoffmann is among the greatest and most popular of the German Romantics. This selection, while stressing the variety of his work, puts in the foreground those tales in which the real and the supernatural are brought into contact and conflict. The humour of these tales is a result of the incongruity of supernatural beings at large in an ostentatiously everyday world. They include The Golden Pot, recognized as Hoffmann's masterpiece by himself and posterity; its spine-chilling companion tale, The Sandman, which Offenbach drew on for his opera Tales of Hoffmann, and which Freud examines in his essay `The Uncanny'; two longer and more elaborate fantasies, set respectively in Germany and Italy; and the late story, My Cousin's Corner Window, which shows the powers of the imagination being applied to everyday urban life, and marks a transition in European literature generally from Romanticism to Realism. Ritchie Robertson's detailed introduction places the stories in their intellectual and historical context and explores their compelling narrative complexities. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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E. T. A. Hoffmann’s classic tales of Gothic horror and fantasy are presented in a new translation accompanying the beguiling drawings of Natalie Frank “Sumptuous. . . . [Natalie Frank’s] artwork . . . is gruesome perfection.”—Meghan Cox Gurdon, Wall Street Journal E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776–1822) was one of the greatest German Romantic authors of fantasy and a pioneer in the genre we now call Gothic horror. His innovative stories explore ideas of madness, genius, doppelgängers, artificial intelligence, and the boundaries between realities and dreams. Artist Natalie Frank and leading fairy-tale scholar Jack Zipes have joined forces in this lavishly illustrated volume of five of Hoffmann’s most influential tales: The Golden Pot, The Sandman, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, The Mystifying Child, and The Mines of Falun. In addition to offering fresh translations, Zipes introduces the project and sheds light on how Hoffmann’s lifetime of personal traumas shaped his writing. Frank’s richly rendered gouache and chalk pastels reveal Hoffmann’s worlds in full-page drawings and marginalia. Pivotal scenes of transformation, courage, love, desire, and betrayal are illustrated through a feminist lens, focusing on strong, self-aware female characters. A foreword by novelist Karen Russell delves into the influence the tales had on her own literary career and the ways in which she emulates Hoffmann today. The Wounded Storyteller will introduce Hoffmann’s timeless work to a new generation of readers.

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Ranging from macabre fantasies to fairy tales and tales of crime, these stories from the author of The Nutcracker create a rich fictional world. Hoffman paints a complex vision of humanity, where people struggle to establish identities in a hostile, absurd world.

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