Background
Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen was born at Gelnhausen.
Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen was born at Gelnhausen.
At the age of ten he was kidnapped by Hessian soldiery, and in their midst experienced military life in the Thirty Years' War. At the close of the war, Grimmelshausen entered the service of Franz Egon von Fürstenberg, bishop of Strassburg (Strasbourg). In 1665, he was made Schultheiss (magistrate) at Renchen in Baden. On obtaining this appointment, he devoted himself to literary pursuits.
Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen became administrator of the holdings of the counts of Schauenburg in the Renchtal, then steward of the castle of Ullenburg, where he became associated with the literary circles at Strassbourg. He then became an independent innkeeper in Gaisbach "At the Silver Star" and finally served from 1667 as mayor of the village of Renchen in the Rhine plain.
Grimmelshausen then devoted his full powers to writing stories for gift calendars and to publishing these calendars. Through this lively vehicle he was best able to give expression to his temperamental personality: the natural narrative gift and the thirst for knowledge of the self-taught, the zeal of the popular educator, and the passion of the minister, as well as the superstition and the craze for curiosities, in which he is a child of his time.
From 1669 to 1671 there appeared three calendars of marvelous stories, and in 1671 an EwigwährenderEwigwahrender Kalender ("Perpetual Calendar").
Grimmelshausen concealed his real name under such anagrams as Melchior Sternfels von Fuchshaim, German Schleifheim von Sulsfort, Samuel Greifnson von Hirschfeld, etc., which were not deciphered until 1837.
On August 17, 1676, Grimmelshausen died in Renchen, "honestus et magno ingenio et eruditione praetor." In 1683-1684 his publisher Felsecker in NürnbergNurnberg brought out the first collected edition of his works.