Peter Schlemihl

Adelbert von Chamisso (1781 –1838) was a German poet and botanist. In 1796 his family was forced to leave France. They settled in Berlin where Chamisso became a page-in-waiting to the queen. He later joined the Prussian infantry. Peter Schlemihl is the story of a man who sells his shadow to the Devil for an always full wallet. He then finds out that a man without a shadow is shunned by society. The woman he loves rejects him, and he spends the rest of his life wandering the world in scientific exploration. The Yiddish word Schlemiel means a hopelessly incompetent person, a bungler. The name is a synonym for one who makes a desperate or silly bargain