Lustige Geschichten und Drollige Bilder (Merry Stories and Funny Pictures)

Heinrich Hoffmann-Donner, the medical adviser to a lunatic asylum, wrote this collection of negative exempla, or how-not-to-act tales. Pity poor Pauline, who liked playing alone with matches before she set herself aflame. Or ponder the plight of Kaspar, a strong, healthy boy who, having proclaimed that he would no longer eat his soup, died of starvation! The cruelty and violence of these lessons caused them to fall out of favor with 20th-century parents, but not before the book had sold millions of copies abroad and in the States. Shown here is the German first edition, which was so popular it was reissued and expanded with a new title, Der Struwwelpeter (Slovenly Peter), named after the boy with untrimmed nails and unwashed hair.