Phenomena

First published in 1817 within The Serapion Brethren, Phenomena follows uncanny visions and mesmeric powers against the unsettled backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (1776 – 1822), the German jurist, composer, and critic at the heart of Romantic storytelling, was fascinated by the shadowy borderland between science, the soul, and the supernatural, and few writers charted it so vividly.