The Continuation of Simplicissimus

The Continuation is Grimmelshausen's 'pilgrim's progress', the concluding chapter in one of the greatest and most acclaimed German novels. It combines fantastic episodes with a realistic narrative style. At the end of his original adventures his hero withdraws from the world to live as a hermit in the Black Forest. Now, after a vivid dream of the Devil and all his minions at work, he decides to become a pilgrim and visit the holy places, making his way, with various encounters, across Switzerland to Italy, where he takes passage on a ship to Egypt. Outside Cairo he is captured by Arab robbers who take him to the Red Sea, exhibiting him as a wild man from the desert. Rescued by European merchants, he embarks on a ship to return home via the Cape of Good Hope, but the ship is wrecked and, 50 years before Robinson Crusoe, he is marooned on a desert island.

Johann Jakob Christoffel Von Grimmelshausen was born at Gelnhausen in 1621 or 1622. His early life was dominated by the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) in which he fought for both sides. He describes his first involvement in the war as a 'snotty-nosed ten-year-old musketeer' in his writing and served as a soldier until its end. His experiences in the Thirty years War are mirrored in his masterpiece, Simplicissimus which was first published in 1668 and was the first bestselling novel in Germany. Several of his later work takes up themes and characters occurring in Simplicissimus, including The Life of Courage;Whore, Thief and Vagabond, Tearaway and The Continuation of Simplicissimus finishes the story.