two friends spent the winter

Chap. iv.: In what manner Simplicissimus and Herzbruder went to the wars again and returned thence

Chap. v.: How Simplicissimus rode courier and in the likeness of Mercury learned from Jove what his design was as regards war and peace

Chap. vi.: A story of a trick that Simplicissimus played at the spa

Chap. vii.: How Herzbruder died and how Simplicissimus again fell to wanton courses

Chap. viii.: How Simplicissimus found his second marriage turn out, and how he met with his dad and learned who his parents had been

Chap. ix.: In what manner the pains of childbirth came upon him, and how he became a widower

Chap. x.: Relation of certain peasants concerning the wonderful Mummelsee

Chap. xi.: Of the marvellous thanksgiving of a patient, and of the holy thoughts thereby awakened in Simplicissimus

Chap. xii.: How Simplicissimus journeyed with the sylphs to the centre of the earth

Chap. xvii.: How Simplicissimus returned from the middle of the earth, and of his strange fancies, his air-castles, his calculations; and how he reckoned without his host

Chap. xviii.: How Simplicissimus wasted his spring in the wrong place

Chap. xx.: Treats of a trifling promenade from the Black Forest to Moscow in Russia

Chap. xxi.: How Simplicissimus further fared in Moscow

Chap. xxii.: By what a short and merry road he came home to his dad

Chap. xxiii.: Is very short and concerneth Simplicissimus alone

Chap. xxiv.: Why and in what fashion Simplicissimus left the world again

APPENDIX A
CONTINUATION

Chap. xix.: How Simplicissimus and a carpenter escaped from a shipwreck with their lives and were thereafter provided with a land of their own

Chap. xx.: How they hired a fair cook-maid and by God's help were rid of her again

Chap. xxi.: How they thereafter kept house together and how they set to work

Chap. xxii.: Further sequel of the above story, and how Simon Meron left the island and this life, and how Simplicissimus remained the sole lord of the island

Chap. xxiii.: In which the hermit concludes his story and therewith ends these his six books

APPENDIX B

APPENDIX C

"Continuatio," chap. xiii.: How Simplicissimus in return for a night's lodging, taught his host a curious art

INTRODUCTION

The translation here presented to the public is intended rather as a contribution to the history, or perhaps it should be said the sociology, of the momentous period to which the romance of "Simplicissimus" belongs, than as a specimen of literature. Effective though its situations are, consistent and artistic though its composition is (up to a certain point), its interest lies chiefly in the pictures, or rather photographs, of contemporary manners and characters which it presents. It has been said with some truth that if succeeding romancers had striven as perseveringly as our author to embody the spirit and reflect the ways of the people, German fiction might long ago have reached as high a development as the English novel. As it is, there is little of such spirit to be discovered in the prose romances which appeared between the time of Grimmelshausen and that of Jean Paul Richter. But the influence of the latter was completely swept away in the torrent of idealism by which the fictions of the idolised Goethe and his followers were characterised, and his domestic realism has only of late made its reappearance in disquieting and sordid forms.

It should be remembered as an apology for the stress now laid upon the sociological side of the history of the Thirty Years War, that that side has by historians been resolutely thrust into the background. The most detailed and painstaking narratives of the war are either bare records of military operations or, worse still, represent merely meticulous and valueless unravellings of the web of intrigue with which the pedants of the time deceived themselves into the belief that they were very Machiavels of subtlety and resource. While the Empire was bleeding to death, the chancelleries of half Europe were intent on the detaching from one side or the other of a venal general, or the patching up of some partial armistice that might afford breathing-time to organise further mischief. It does not matter much to any one whether Wallenstein was knave or fool, but it did matter and does matter that the war crippled for two hundred years the finances, the agriculture, and the enterprise of the German people, and dealt a blow to their patriotism from the like of which few nations could have recovered. Even the character of the civil administration was completely altered when the struggle ended. An army of capable bourgeois secretaries and councillors had for centuries served their princes and their fellow subjects well. It is wonderful that throughout the devastating wars waged by Wallenstein and Weimar, and even later on during the organised raids of Wrangel and Königsmark, the records were kept, the village business administered (where there was a village left), and even revenue collected with wellnigh as much regularity as in time of peace. These functionaries, who had worked so well, were at the end of the war gradually dispossessed of their influence, and their posts were taken by a swarm of young place-hunters of noble birth whom the peace had deprived of their proper employment, and whose pride was only equalled by their incapacity. But neither particulars nor generalisations bearing on such subjects are to be found in the pages of professional historians; they must be sought in the contemporary records of the people, of which the present work affords one of the few existing specimens, or else in the work of picturesque writers who, laying no claim to the title of scientific investigators, yet possess the power of selecting salient facts and deducing broad conclusions from them. Freitag's "Bilder aus der Deutschen Vergangenheit" indicates a wealth of material for sociological study which has as yet been but charily used; and recent German works dealing directly with the subject are more remarkable for elegance of production than for depth of research.

Such being the purpose for which this translation has been undertaken, an Introduction to it must necessarily be concerned not so much with the bibliography of the book or even the sources, if any, to which the author was beholden for his material, as with his own personality and the amount of actual fact that underlies the narrative of the fictitious hero's adventures. In respect of the first point, we are presented with a biography almost as shadowy and elusive as that of Shakespeare. In many ways, indeed, the particulars of the lives of these two which we possess are curiously alike. Both were voluminous writers; both enjoyed considerable contemporary reputation; and in both cases our knowledge of their actual history is confined to a few statements by persons who lived somewhat later than themselves, and a few formal documents and entries. In Grimmelshausen's case this obscurity is increased by his practice of publishing under assumed names.