The Adventurous Simplicissimus

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. In the score of romances and tracts which are undoubtedly his work, we find only two to which his real name is attached. He has nine other pseudonyms, nearly all anagrams of the words “Christoffel von Grimmelshausen.” Of these, “German Schleifheim von Sulsfort” and “Samuel Greifnsohn vom Hirschfelt” are the best known; the latter being the name to which he most persistently clung, and under which Simplicissimus was published, though the former appears on the title-page as that of the “editor.” Only as the signature to a kind of advertisement at the end do we find the initials of “Hans Jacob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen,” his full name. Until the publication of a collection of his works by Felsecker at Nuremberg in 1685, the true authorship of most of them remained unknown. But that editor, by his allusions in the preface, practically identified the writer as the “Schultheiss of Renchen, near Strasbourg,” whom he seems to have known personally. The reasons for anonymity were, no doubt, firstly, the fact that Simplicissimus at least dealt with the actions of men yet alive; and secondly, with regard to the other books, the continual references to details of the author’s own life and opinions. His dread of offending a contemporary is shown by his disguising of the name of St. André, the commandant of Lippstadt, as N. de S. A. of L. (bk. III, chap. 15).

It is unnecessary here to enter into a discussion of the authorities from whom the meagre particulars of Grimmelshausen’s life are drawn. It may suffice for our present purpose to indicate the main events of that life. He was born at Gelnhausen, near Hanau, about 1625⁠—probably of a humble family. At the age of ten he was captured by Hessian (that is, be it remembered, anti-Imperialist) troops, and became a member of that unseliger Tross⁠—the unholy crew of horseboys, harlots, sutlers, and hangers-on who followed the armies on both sides, and sometimes outnumbered them three to one. In 1648, the last year of the war, the whole Imperial army only numbered 40,000 fighting men, and the recognised camp-followers, who were commanded and kept in order by officers significantly named the “Provosts of the Harlots,” no less than 140,000. In the preface to one of his works called the Satyrical Pilgrim, Grimmelshausen speaks of himself as having been “a musketeer” at the age of ten⁠—a statement which is obviously to be taken in the same sense in which Simplicissimus tells us (bk. II, chap. 4) how he “served the crown of Sweden” at a similar age as a soldier, and drew pay for it. As a matter of fact, Grimmelshausen probably served a musketeer or several musketeers, just as the “Boy” in Henry V serves Ancient Pistol and his comrades. From another book, the Everlasting Almanac, we learn that he was a soldier under the Imperialist general Götz, lay in garrison at Offenburg, the free city alluded to in book V, chapter 20, and also for a long time in the famous fortress of Philippsburg, of his residence in which he tells various anecdotes. There are traces both in Simplicissimus and his other books of a wide and unusual acquaintance with many lands, German and non-German. He knows both Westphalia and Saxony well; Bohemia also: and certainly Switzerland. The journey to Russia may have some foundation in fact, though the statement put into the mouth of Simplicissimus that he has himself seen the fabulous “sheep plant” (bk. V, chap. 22) growing in Siberia considerably detracts from his trustworthiness here. But when he left the army, and whether he ever attained to any reputable rank therein, is quite uncertain. If 1625 be the correct date of his birth he would be but twenty-three years old at the conclusion of peace.

Besides his military expeditions, it is pretty clear from his works that he had visited Amsterdam and Paris and knew them fairly well; but for nineteen years we have no further trace of his career, till he suddenly appears as Schultheiss, under the Bishop of Strasbourg, of Renchen, now in the Grand Duchy of Baden, a town of which he deliberately conceals the name exactly as he does his own, by anagrams, calling it now Rheinec, now Cernheim. In October 1667 he appears as holding this office and issuing an order concerning the mills of the town, which is still in existence. His wife was Katharina Henninger, and entries have been found of the birth of two children, a daughter and a son, in 1669 and 1675. A curious episode in the first part of the Enchanted Bird’s-Nest, quoted hereafter, seems to indicate a grave family disappointment. In 1676 he died, aged fifty-one only, but having reached what may almost be called a ripe age for the battered and spent soldier of the Thirty Years War. The entry of his death is peculiarly full and even discursive, and tells how though he had again entered on military service⁠—no doubt on the occasion of the French invasion in 1674⁠—and though his