The harrowing and hilarious Adventures of a Simpleton is unanimously acclaimed today as the greatest German novel of the 17th century. Set against the gristly background of the Thirty Years' War, it is a vivid and realistic re-creation of an age, evoked by an artless and earthy language new to German literature at the time. Grimmelshausen's grotesque realism is the primary literary testimony of the Thirty Years' War, and the human folly implicit in it, by an errant soldier of fortune. Influenced by the Spanish picaresque novel, the saga of Simplicius takes its hero through wars, marriages, and travels that culminate on an uncharted South Atlantic island. Walter Wallich, in this translation, aptly captures the zest, the pageantry and the humour of the original. He has also written a special postscript, with revealing sidelights on Grimmelshausen, whose life corresponded in many ways to that of his hero.
- ISBN10 0804462291
- ISBN13 9780804462297
- Publish Date 1 December 1997
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 13 August 2003
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Imprint Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.
- Edition New edition
- Format Paperback
- Pages 252
- Language English