The Nutcracker Treasury (Mint Editions (Christmas Collection)) - Softcover

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Bringing together one original story and three subsequent retellings, The Nutcracker Omnibus features the work of two influential storytellers―E.T.A Hoffman, who is recognized as a leading figure in German Romanticism and a pioneer of science fiction and fantasy; and Alexandre Dumas, who was one of the most universally read French authors and is known his extravagantly adventurous historical novels―as well as the renowned composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, whose work made him the first Russian composer to attract international acclaim; and a children’s book author, O. Eliphaz Keat, whose only listed work is Princess Pirlipatine and the Nutcracker.

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From a dark short story to a whimsical Christmastime fantasy and eventually a famous ballet, E.T.A. Hoffmann’s original The Nutcracker and the Mouse King has continued to prevail through the ages. Follow the tale of a beloved Christmas toy and his battles against the evil Mouse King from origin, to retelling, to adaptation and translation.

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The Origin of the Treasury

The book you are about to read will in some ways be repetitive—it is, after all, a collection of adaptations and reinterpretations of a single story involving a young girl and her nutcracker. There will be many similarities, overlapping details, and familiar plot points; however, in between these bouts of sameness you will also be taken on a journey of transformation. 

The history of The Nutcracker—not to be confused with Alexandre Dumas’ The History of a Nutcracker—is an interesting one. 

Originally written by E.T.A. Hoffman in 1816, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King is a sort of dark fantasy that questions whether or not the story we’re being told is the feverish nightmare of a young child or a legitimate journey to an alternate reality of talking toys and diabolical mice. 

Dumas’ retelling of the story less than three decades later, is almost identical in regard to the events that transpire, but is much kinder in its presentation of the narrative—that is to say, the reader is expected to believe that what happens to Mary actually happens and become swept up in the innocence of childhood romance. 

By the time Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker sees its first performance in 1892, most all the edges of Hoffman’s original story and even Dumas’ retelling, have been sanded away in favor of a gentler, softer more consumable Christmas fairytale full of whimsy. Which, mind you, does not take into account  O. Eliphaz Keat’s Princess Pirlipantine and the Nutcracker which takes away the main plot of the young girl receiving the Nutcracker as a Christmas gift almost entirely. 

This is not to say that Alexandre Dumas, Pyotr Tchaikovsky or O. Eliphaz Keat were in any way wrong for the changes they made to Hoffman’s story; rather, this treasury concerns itself—and exists—out of admiration and amazement for the story’s ability to live on more than two hundred years after its original publication. 

The Nutcracker Treasury is a love letter to the idea that nothing ever truly dies and that great stories will continue to be passed down from generation to generation, no matter what form they may take.