E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822) was a universally gifted artist, musician, lawyer and writer whose fantastic tales and romantic fairy stories have had a decisive influence on world literature. This handbook reflects the current state of research with information on the wide diversity of his fields of activity, on the historical and aesthetic prerequisites for his literary, musical and legal work, on the individual works themselves, on the history of their reception and on systematic aspects such as mediality, poetics, character drawing etc. In addition, it provides a comprehensive bibliography together with short biographies of people connected with Hoffmann.