Fleeing with his family to Berlin to avoid the turmoil of the French Revolution when he was only nine years old, Chamisso quickly became Germanized. Joining with other German Romanticists in Berlin, he founded the Nordsternbund in 1804 and began publishing his first works in Berliner Musenalnanach that same year. He toured France and Switzerland during 1807-08 where he became a member of Madame de Stael's literary circle. In 1814, he published Peter Schlemiehl's wundersome Geschicte (Peter Schlemiehl's Remarkable Story), a fantasy of a man who sells his shadow to the devil, and which established Chamisso in the eye of the public. Some of Chamisso's songs were set to music by Schumann. A true Renaissance man, Chamisso was also an accomplished scientist and philologist. His diary of a round-the-world voyage, Reise un die Welt mit der Romanzoffischen Entdeckungs Expedition (Voyage Around the World with the Romanazov Discovery Expedition) published in 1821 became a best-seller in its day. |
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