Struwwelpeter – Heinrich Hoffmann / Struwwelhitler – Dr Schrecklichkeit

One of the wonders of bookwormery is the sometimes surprising journey of discovery.  One book leads to another and suddenly a whole new world emerges.   So it was as I read Clare Dudman’s 98 Reasons for Being, an historical novel about Dr Heinrich Hoffmann, a Frankfurt psychiatrist and author of what some call “the most famous children’s book on earth” – one I’d never heard of! Utterly incredible given that I lived in Frankfurt am Main for 8 years. OK – I was young and single and not at all child-oriented at that stage.  But how many times had I walked past the Struwwelpeter fountain on the Hauptwache and not even asked what all the strange figures on it were?  (If fact, just how long has that fountain been there?  Did I really not register it for 8 years?)

Hoffmann wrote and illustrated Struwwelpeter  (Shock-headed Peter) in 1844 because…