The things wherewith one strikes a light. Now here is Mark Twain’s version of this immortal children’s classic: Ah, and the illustrations must not be omitted: In all countries and all epochs, the nearest way to make the teeny weenies laugh their evil little heads off is to Work the Perverse-and work it hard. Got it? You see what we’re dealing with here. Help! the child has set herself on fire!” “Come on! Come on! Who will quickly help? Throw it away! Otherwise you’ll light yourself on fire!” Little Paula however pleased herself a lot, Leave it alone! Otherwise you’ll light yourself on fire!” “Ah,” she says, “ah, how lovely and fine!

With a light heart and singing and carrying on, The Rather Sad Story with the Box of Matches It should be mentioned that the cats’ names, Minz and Maunz, should be pronounced “Mints” and “Mounts.” Many people do not understand this about the letter z in German. But we have a great deal of more essential ground to cover.įirst, to give English-speakers an idea of what Struwwelpeter is like, here is one of the poems, translated pretty much word-for-word (you can also check out Heinrich Hoffmann’s original, along with the standard, anonymous, nineteenth-century translation, here).

There are several narratives here, all worth the telling, regarding Twain’s deal with the German language, the Germans’ deal with Struwwelpeter, Twain’s surprising his family by unveiling and performing his translation of the poems on Christmas morning, und so weiter. Twain, too, had the benefit of a young audience for his translation: his three daughters, Jean, Clara, and Susie (ages eleven, seventeen, and nineteen, respectively) were with him at the time, suffering in Berlin. The German is hardly esoteric it was originally composed (1844) for the benefit of the author’s three-year-old son. The whole thing is just ten medium-size poems, mostly in rhyming iambic tetrameter couplets. In 1891, stranded in Berlin, Twain set about translating the most famous children’s book ever written in German: Struwwelpeter. I revere him, have made lengthy extracts from his works, have read aloud many times from Life on the Mississippi and Huckleberry Finn. It is not my habitual practice to go toe-to-toe with Mark Twain.

Struwwelpeter story english