Book description
Tomcat Murr is a loveable, self-taught animal who has written his own
autobiography. But a printer's error causes his story to be accidentally
mixed and spliced with a book about the composer Johannes Kreisler. As
the two versions break off and alternate at dramatic moments, two wildly
different characters emerge from the confusion - Murr, the confident
scholar, lover, carouser and brawler, and the moody, hypochondriac
genius Kreisler. In his exuberant and bizarre novel, Hoffmann
brilliantly evokes the fantastic, the ridiculous and the sublime within
the humdrum bustle of daily life, making The Life and Opinions of the
Tomcat Murr (1820-22) one of the funniest and strangest novels of the
nineteenth century.
E T A Hoffmann (1776 - 1822) was born in Konigsberg and became one of
the best known and influential authors of his time. He exploited the
grotesque and the bizarre in a manner unmatched by any other Romantic writer.
Jeremy Adler is Professor of German at King's College London.
Anthea Bell has received many awards for her translations including
the Mildred L. Batchelder Award in 1979, 1990 and 1995.
