The macabre imagination and erratic life of the man behind Christmas story The Nutcracker

By Eric Parisot, Associate Professor in English Literature, Flinders University

It’s that time of year when our favourite Christmas stories reemerge to dominate the stage and screen. Prominent among them is The Nutcracker, a classic 19th-century tale that has been adapted in a variety of forms, but is best known as Tchaikovsky’s 1892 ballet.

Not many would know E.T.A. Hoffmann as the author of the original story, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (1816), in which a child’s Christmas present comes to life. Even fewer would know much about him.

It is fair to say he is not the kind of writer some might imagine to be behind the delightful children’s fantasy…

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