Nutcracker doll
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Nutcracker dolls, also known as Christmas nutcrackers, are decorative nutcracker figurines most commonly made to resemble a toy soldier. In German tradition, the dolls were created as representatives
Display of nutcracker dolls
Original nutcracker dolls from Nussknacker Museum in Neuhausen, Saxony
"The Nutcracker and the Mouse King", also simply known as "The Nutcracker", is a literary fairy tale from 1816 by the German author E. T. A. Hoffmann, in which a young girl's favorite Christmas toy, t
Nutcracker doll
…as souvenirs. Further popularization came from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker, an 1892 ballet adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King", which features a toy soldier nutcracker. The ballet, introduced to America during the mid-20th century, became a favorite holiday tradition across…
Title page with Hoffmann's own illustration in Kinder-Mährchen, 1816
An illustration from the 1853 U.S. edition by D. Appleton, New York.
Title page of the first edition of Kinder-Mährchen