The Automaton

First published in 1814 and later gathered into The Serapion Brethren, The Automaton (Die Automate) sets two friends on the trail of a prophetic mechanical oracle, in a story often hailed as an ancestor of science fiction. Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (1776 – 1822), the German Romantic jurist, composer, and critic, was fascinated by the uncanny frontier where music, machinery, and the soul meet.