biography
| name: |
Chamisso, Adelbert von
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| |
originally Louis Charles Adelaide Chamisso de Boncourt
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pronunciation:
[shameesoh]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1781–1838)
|
| biography:
| Poet and biologist, born in Champagne, NE France. The French Revolution drove his parents to Prussia, and he served in the Prussian army (1798–1807). In Geneva he joined the literary circle of Madame de Staël and later studied at Berlin. He accompanied a Russian exploring expedition round the world as naturalist (1815–18), and on his return was appointed keeper of the Botanical Garden of Berlin. In 1819 he was the first to discover in certain animals what he called ‘alternation of generations’. He is best known for his fairy tale Peter Schlemihl (1813), the story of the man who lost his shadow. |
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