Musäus's stories were translated and published as Popular Tales of the Germans (1791) by Gothic novelist William Beckford. Musäus anonymously published Physiognomische Reisen, voran ein physiognomisch Tagebuch (1778-1779), a satire of the work of Johann Kaspar Lavater, founder of the pseudo-sciences of physiognomy and animal magnetism. Anne Plumptre translated the satire as Musaeus's Physiognomical Travels, Preceded by a Physiognomical Journal (1800).