Wilhelm Hauff (November 29, 1802 – November 18, 1827), German poet and novelist, was born at Stuttgart, the son of a secretary in the ministry of foreign affairs, who was best known for publishing collection of classic fairy tales, which became very popular:
Wilhelm Hauff was the son of August Friedrich Hauff, and Hedwig Wilhelmine Elsaesser Hauff.
He was the second of four children. Young Hauff lost his father when he was seven years old, and his early education was practically self-gained in the library of his maternal grandfather.
In 1820 he began to study at the University of Tübingen and in four years he completed his philosophical and theological studies.
On leaving the university, Wilhelm became a tutor to the children of the famous Württemberg minister of war, General Baron Ernst Eugen von Hugel, and for them wrote his Märchen fairy tales.
Some of these stories are very popular in German-speaking countries to this day, such as "The History of Little Mook", "The Tale of the Ghost Ship", "The Dwarf Nose", and "The Cold Heart" and many others.
In January 1827, Hauff undertook the editorship of the Stuttgart Morgenblatt and in the following month married, but his happiness was prematurely cut short by his death from fever on the 18th of November 1827.
The freshness and originality of Hauff's talent, his inventiveness, and genial humour have won him a high place among the German prose writers of the early nineteenth century.
