Seume was born in
Poserna (now part of
Lützen,
Saxony-Anhalt). He was educated first at Borna, then at the
St Nicholas School (Nikolaischule) and
University of Leipzig. The study of
Shaftesbury and
Bolingbroke wakened his interest in
theology, and, breaking off his studies, he travelled to
Hesse-Kassel to join the military. Seume later wrote that he was traveling to study in Paris when he was seized by Hessian recruiting officers and sold to England, whereupon he was drafted to
Canada. (Multiple historians dispute this account, suggesting Seume voluntarily enlisted.) After his return in 1783 he deserted at
Bremen, but was captured and brought to
Emden; a second attempt at flight also failed. In 1787, however, a citizen of Emden became surety for him to the amount of 80
talers, and he was allowed to visit his home. He did not return, but paid off his debt in Emden with the remuneration he received for translating an English novel. He taught languages for a time in
Leipzig, and became tutor to a Graf
Igelstrom, whom, in 1792, he accompanied to
Warsaw. Here he became secretary to General von Igelstrom, and, as a Russian officer, experienced the terrors of the Polish insurrection (
Kościuszko Uprising). In 1796 he was again in Leipzig and, resigning his Russian commission, entered the employment of the publisher
Georg Joachim Göschen. In December 1801, he set out on his famous nine months' walk to
Sicily, described in his
Spaziergang nach Syrakus (1803). Some years later he visited Russia,
Finland,
Sweden and
Denmark, a journey which is described in
Mein Sommer im Jahr 1805 (1807). His health now began to fail, and he died on 13 June 1810, in
Teplitz (now also known as Teplice). His reputation rests on the two books just mentioned, to which may be added his autobiography,
Mein Leben (1813, continued by
C.A.H. Clodius). As a dramatist (
Miltiades, 1808), and as a lyric poet (
Gedichte, 1801), he had but little success. Seume's
Gesammelte Schriften were first edited by J. P. Zimmermann (1823–1826); his
Sämtliche Werke (1826–1827) passed through seven editions. The most recent edition as of 1911 was J. G. Seume's
Prosaische und poetische Werke (10 volumes, 1879). See Oskar Planer and Camillo Reißmann,
J. G. Seume. Geschichte seines Lebens und seiner Schriften (1898). ==Seume and Beethoven==