Chamisso, Adelbert von (1781-1838)

French-born German biologist and writer, author of the fairy tale Peter Schlemihl's wundersame Geschichte/Peter Schlemihl's Remarkable Story (1814). One of the most prominent German Romanticists, he published books on biology, a novel, and works of poetry. Some of his poems were set to music by Robert Schumann. He was also a zoologist and was the first to report the peculiar sexual cycle of some forms of molluscs.

Life Chamisso was born in Champagne, France, but at the age of nine he fled with his family to Berlin, Germany to escape the horrors of the French Revolution. He adopted German as his first language and, after a career in the Prussian army, sailed around the world on the Russian vessel Rurik. On this voyage, which lasted 1815-18, he kept a detailed diary of events and catalogued many new species of plants in his capacity as ship's botanist. His account of the journey, Reise um die Welt/Journey Round the World, was published in 1821. He became the curator of the botanical gardens in Berlin in 1819.

Work Peter Schlemihl's Remarkable Story is about a man who sells his shadow to the devil and roams the world trying to find peace of mind. The story is thought to represent his own feelings about his life as an individual without a nationality. His verse includes the cycle of lyrics Frauenliebe und Frauenleben/Women's Life and Women's Love (1831). Chamisso also made many verse translations, wrote several works on natural history, and discovered the phenomenon of ‘alternation of generations’ in animals.