Matthias Claudius

CLAUDIUS, Matthias. b. Reinfeld, near Lübeck, 15 August 1740; d. Hamburg, 21 January 1821. He studied Theology at the University of Jena (1759) but left to study law and languages, after which he became a private tutor and then a journalist. He worked for the Hamburg Adress Comptoirnachrichten (a news agency) and then became literary editor of a newspaper, the Wandsbecker Bote, or Bothe (‘The Wandsbeck Messenger’) at Wandsbeck, near Hannover. He also wrote poems, some of which were published in the poetry magazine, Göttingen Musen-Almanach. In 1776 he became a civil servant and newspaper editor at Darmstadt, returning to Wandsbeck and to the editorship of the Wandsbecker Bote in 1777 after...