Alfa-Veda Verlag – Bücher für Bewusstseinsbezogene Bildung
Autor/in
Dr.
Heinrich Hoffmann
(1809-1894) was a physician and psychiatrist. As a member of a
clinic for the poor he cared for destitute patients. He ran the
institution for the insane and epileptic in Frankfurt am Main and is
considered the first representative of youth psychiatry. He
described himself as an occasional poet and composed “Wine Songs for
Doctors” at social events.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)
was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and
lecturer. He was lauded as the "greatest humorist the United States has
produced", and William Faulkner called him "the father of American
literature".
Written in 1844 by German physician Heinrich Hoffmann,
Slovenly Peter has entertained generations of readers around the world.
Intending to buy a picture book as a Christmas present for his
three-year-old son, Hoffmann instead wrote and illustrated his own
book. In 1845 he was persuaded by friends to publish the book
anonymously. It was one of the first uses of chromolitography – a
method of making multi-colored prints – in a children‘s book. For the
third edition, published in 1858, new stories and pictures were added
and the title was changed to Struwwelpeter,
the name of the character
in the first story. As a psychiatrist, Hoffmann dressed the most
common childhood disorders and misbehavior in entertaining verses and
pictures. Stories in verses with colorful pictures were then – long
before Wilhelm Busch and the first comics – still completely new. The
little book conquered the world in no time and was parodied, imitated
and recast with ever new political and cultural messages more often
than any other children’s book.
This bilingual edition shows Hoffmann’s original German First
Print of 1845, and the version known today in
Mark Twains witty translation. as well as the story of Struwwelpeter’s
creation told by Hoffmann himself. Among the more than a dozen
different English translations, Mark Twain’s free rendering is
certainly the most original, and he is no doubt the most prominent
among the many translators into over
100 languages and dialects.