Johann Karl August Musäus

[1][2] Musäus entered the University of Jena in 1754 to study theology (probably the choice of his godfather rather than his own), and was admitted into German Society around this time, a sign of more than ordinary merit.

Despite preaching well, he was not especially devoted to religion, and received no appointment; when after several years he was offered a vacancy as pastor in the nearby countryside, the locals objected on the grounds that "he had once been seen dancing".

The object of this book was to satirize Samuel Richardson's hero Sir Charles Grandison, who had many sentimental admirers in the Holy Roman Empire.

[3][4][5] He became a Freemason in July 1776 at the "Amalia" lodge in Weimar, and became a member of the Bavarian Illuminati in August 1783, taking the names "Priscillianus" and "Dante Alighieri", and becoming presbyter that year.

He was prevented from completing a collection of stories entitled Straussfedern (though one volume was published in 1787) by his death on 28 October 1787, aged 52,[3] in Weimar, where he is buried in the Jacobsfriedhof.

[9] Musäus's Volksmärchen were an early part of the revived interest in fairy tales (which had declined since their late-17th century peak) caused by the rise of romanticism and Romantic nationalism.

[21] Another of the Volksmärchen, "Der geraubte Schleier" ("The Stolen Veil"), a tale about a Swan maiden, was used by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to provide the plot outline of Swan Lake (1876), though the extent of Tchaikovsky's use of Musäus's story is challenged by some such as Russian ballet patriarch Fyodor Lopukhov, who argue the ballet is essentially Russian.

[23] Five of the eight stories in Fantasmagoriana were translated into English by Sarah Elizabeth Utterson as Tales of the Dead (1813), including an abridged form of "Stumme Liebe" as "The Spectre-Barber".