the original story of the Nutcracker was written in 1816 by a German man named E.T.A Hoffmann. ( His initials stand for Ernst Theodore Amadeus.) Although Hoffmann's story was a fairy tale with characters like the Mouse King in it, it was not a story for children. Eventually a French man named Alexander Dumas rewrote it as a children's story and in 1892 in Russia the choreographer Marius Petipa asked Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky to write music for what was to become one of the most popular ballets in the world. ( Illustrations for this workbook were adapted from original drawing by Doris Rice.)