Adelbert von Chamisso (
January 30 1781 –
August 21 1838), was a
German poet and
botanist.
He was born
Louis Charles Adélaïde de Chamissot at the
château of
Boncourt in
Champagne, France, the ancestral seat of his family. Driven out by the
French Revolution, his parents settled in
Berlin, where in
1796 young Chamisso obtained the post of page-in-waiting to the queen, and in
1798 entered a
Prussian infantry regiment as ensign.
His family were shortly afterwards permitted to return to France; he remained in
Germany and continued his military career. He had little education, but sought distraction from the dull routine of the
Prussian military service in assiduous study. In collaboration with
Varnhagen von Ense, he founded (
1803) the
Berliner Musenalmanach, in which his first verses appeared. The enterprise was a failure, and, interrupted by the war, it came to an end in
1806. It brought him, however, to the notice of many of the literary celebrities of the day and established his reputation as a rising poet.
He had become lieutenant in
1801, and in
1805 accompanied his regiment to
Hameln, where he shared in the humiliation of its treasonable capitulation in the following year. Placed on parole, he went to France, but both his parents were dead; returning to Berlin in the autumn of
1807, he obtained his release from the service early the following year. Homeless and without a profession, disillusioned and despondent, he lived in Berlin until
1810, when, through the services of an old friend of the family, he was offered a professorship at the
lycée at
Napoléonville in the
Vendée.
He set out to take up the post, but drawn into the charmed circle of
Madame de Staël, followed her in her exile to
Coppet in
Switzerland, where, devoting himself to
botanical research, he remained nearly two years. In
1812 he returned to Berlin, where he continued his scientific studies. In the summer of the eventful year,
1813, he wrote the prose narrative
Peter Schlemihl, the man who sold his
shadow. This, the most famous of all his works, has been translated into most
European languages (
English by
William Howitt). It was written partly to divert his own thoughts and partly to amuse the children of his friend
Julius Eduard Hitzig.
In
1815, Chamisso was appointed botanist to the
Russian ship
Rurik, which
Otto von Kotzebue (son of
August von Kotzebue) commanded on a scientific voyage round the world. His
diary of the expedition (
Tagebuch,
1821) is a fascinating account of the expedition to the
Pacific Ocean and the
Bering Sea. During this trip Chamisso described a number of new species found in what is now the San Francisco Bay Area. several of these, including the
California poppy, Eschscholzia californica, were named after his friend
Johann Friedrich von Eschscholtz, the Rurik's entomologist. In return, Eschscholtz named a variety of plants, including the genus
Camissonia, after Chamisso. On his return in
1818 he was made custodian of the botanical gardens in Berlin, and was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences, and in
1820 he married.
Chamisso's travels and scientific researches restrained for a while the full development of his poetical talent, and it was not until his forty-eighth year that he turned back to literature. In
1829, in collaboration with
Gustav Schwab, and from
1832 in conjunction with
Franz von Gaudy, he brought out the
Deutscher Musenalmanach, in which his later poems were mainly published.
He died in
Berlin at the age of 57.
Chamisso will be remembered for his work as a botanist; his most important work, done in conjunction with
Diederich Franz Leonhard von Schlechtendal, was the description of many of the most important
trees of
Mexico in
1830-1831. Also, his
Bemerkungen und Ansichten, published in an incomplete form in von Kotzebue's
Entdeckungsreise (Weimar, 1821) and more completely in Chamisso's
Gesammelte Werke (
1836), and the botanical work,
Übersicht der nutzbarsten und schädlichsten Gewächse in Norddeutschland (
1829) are esteemed for their careful treatment of their subjects.
As a poet Chamisso's reputation stands high,
Frauenliebe und -leben (
1830), a cycle of lyrical poems which was set to music by
Robert Schumann and by
Carl Loewe, being particularly famous. Also noteworthy are
Schloss Boncourt and
Salas y Gomez. In estimating his success as a writer, it should be remembered that he was cut off from his native language. He often deals with gloomy or repulsive subjects; and even in his lighter and gayer productions there is an undertone of sadness or of
satire. In the lyrical expression of the domestic emotions he displays a fine felicity, and he knew how to treat with true feeling a tale of love or vengeance.
Die Löwenbraut may be taken as a sample of his weird and powerful simplicity; and
Vergeltung is remarkable for a pitiless precision of treatment.
The first collected edition of Chamisso's works was edited by
J.E. Hitzig and published in six volumes in
1836. 
