Jean Paul

Jean Paul, born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter in Wunsiedel in the Fichtel Mountains of Franconia in 1763, was a German Romantic writer best known for his humorous novels and stories. After his father, a pastor, died in 1779 the family lived in poverty, and he left theology at the University of Leipzig to devote himself wholly to literature. He began with the satirical Grönländische Prozesse and Auswahl aus des Teufels Papieren, then took the pen name Jean Paul, in honour of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for the romance Die unsichtbare Loge in 1793. The best-selling Hesperus of 1795 made him famous, and further works followed, among them Quintus Fixlein, Siebenkäs and the ambitious novel Titan, published between 1800 and 1803. He spent time in Weimar among Herder and other notables, and died in 1825.