It's hard not to burst into xenophobic raptures when contemplating this bizarre little book.

Today the book is paedagogically suspect, to put it mildly, but still makes a top-notch cultural curiosum.

As an article of wordcraft it is powerful in its pictorial display and effective in its message. Keeping children in line was of utmost importance lest they find themselves broke and embarrassing their parents by writing radical manifesta by candlelight.Despite its dated and unfamiliar imagery, der Struwwelpeter is quite capable of frightening the bejeezus out of your four-year-old and I would not feed it to mine. As another reviewer pointed out, these were turbulent times for the European bourgeoisie. This book was billed as funny and indeed it was a tool that consciously intended to mock nonconformity and lack of discipline. At least the German middle classes, who were the target audience of the book, were mostly cured of the scatological excesses of mediaeval and Renaissance humour by the 1840s. Granted, no one starved to death without soup in five days but entertainment was more gory in general, as is evident in the collections of the Brothers Grim(m). Playing with candles was potentially more deadly by a factor of a bazillion when the horse-drawn tank took half an hour to get to the blaze.The rest of the stories are definitely more gratuitous in their cruelty. Cleanliness may not necessarily have been next to godliness but improved your children's chance of seeing their next birthday. Der Struwwelpeter predates modern medicine, hygiene, and emergency services. Some of the stories ought to be looked at in the context of the times. This peculiarly German alienness should not detract from the quality of the book as such. I'm not familiar with the abridged English version, so I don't know how much was snipped (SNIP! THE THUMBS!) but grew up with the original and a healthy suspicion of tailors, even though I can't say I knew any. Der Struwwelpeter might seem a bit alien and off-putting to the modern English-speaking reader.

Der Struwwelpeter by Heinrich Hoffmann