Councillor Krespel E-Book

Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann

• Herausgeber: Paperless
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (commonly abbreviated as E. T. A. Hoffmann; born Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann; 24 January 1776 – 25 June 1822), was a Prussian Romantic author of fantasy and horror, a jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman and caricaturist. His stories form the basis of Jacques Offenbach's famous opera "The Tales of Hoffmann", in which Hoffmann appears (heavily fictionalized) as the hero. He is also the author of the novella "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King", on which the famous ballet "The Nutcracker" is based. The ballet "Coppélia" is based on two other stories that Hoffmann wrote, while Schumann's "Kreisleriana" is based on Hoffmann's character Johannes Kreisler.Hoffmann's stories were very influential during the 19th century, and he is one of the major authors of the Romantic movement.

Leseprobe

Table Of Contents

Councillor Krespel

Councillor Krespel

The man whom I am going to tell you about was Krespel, a Member of Council in the town of H____. This Krespel was the most extraordinary character that I have ever come across in all my life. When I first arrived in H____ whole town was talking of him, because one of his most extraordinary pranks chanced to be in full swing. He was a very clever lawyer and diplomat, and a certain German prince - not a person of great importance—had employed him to draw up a memorial, concerning claims of his on the Imperial Chancery, which had been eminently successful. As Krespel had often said he never could meet with a house quite to his mind, this prince, as recompense for his services, undertook to pay for the building of one, to be planned by Krespel according to the dictates of his fancy. He also offered to buy a site for it; but Krespel determined to build it in a delightful piece of garden ground of his own, just outside the town-gate. So he got together all the necessary building materials, and had them laid down in this piece of ground. After which, he was to be seen all day long, in his usual extraordinary costume—which he always made with his own hands, on peculiar principles of his own—slaking the lime, sifting the gravel, arranging the stones in heaps, etc., etc. He had not gone to any architect for a plan. But one fine day he walked in upon the principal builder, and told him to come next morning to his garden, with the necessary workmen—stonemasons, hodmen and so forth—and build him a house. The builder, of course, asked to see the plan, and was not a little astonished when Krespel said there was no plan and no occasion for one; everything would go on all right without one.