Karl Philipp Moritz

Karl Philipp Moritz (September 15, 1756 - June 26, 1793) worked as a German novelist, publisher, and essayist of the Sturm und Drang, late enlightenment and classicist periods that inspired later German Romanticism. Moritz was born in Hameln in 1756 into a poor family. He was apprenticed to a hat producer after getting a limited schooling. He attracted the eye of a patron in Hanover and entered a gymnasium; however, he soon received a position as actor under Ekhof at Gotha, failing which he returned to study (1776) at Erfurt; but tiring again, he participated in the Herrnhuter (Moravian Church) at Barby, and explored religion at Wittenberg (1777); then taught charitable giving at the Potsdam military orphanage, soon going back to wander.