GREVIMELSHATJSEN, grim'mels-hou'zen, HAxs JAKOB CHRISTOFFEL VON ( C.1625-76) . A German writer. He was a peasant's son, and was born in Gelnhausen. His important Sim plicissimus is the only German fiction of the seventeenth century that can still be read with pleasure. He served as a soldier through the later period of the Thirty Years' War, when, able to observe the traits of the common people, he thus provided himself with ample material for his future studies in fiction. From Protestantism he turned late in his life to Catholicism, and served for a time the Bishop of Strassburg. For a while, too, he was a magistrate at Renchen, in Baden, where he died. Per abenteucrliche Sim plicissimus Teutsch ( 1669) is, as its subtitle states, "The Description of the Life of a Strange Vagabond Named Melchior Sternfels von Fuull shaim." It is a direct imitation of the Spanish picaresque novels, as well as a wonderfully real istic narrative drawn from the author's own ex periences. No contemporary writing gives a more
vivid realistic picture of the desolation wrought in Germany from 1618 to 1648. At the same time lie exhibited very marked talents as a prose poet. Ile put forth many other books of different genres and of much less general significance. Among them were satirical productions such as Schwarz and leeks, oder die Satirisehe Pilgerin (1666) ; gallant romances of the kind that were the mode in that day, as for instance. Dietwalt and A me Nude (1670) : and popular stories based on biblical subjects. one of which was entitled Joseph (1667). There are good modern editions of Simplieissimus by Keller (Stuttgart, 1852-62) and Tittmann (Leipzig, 1877), and a reprint edited by KOgel (Halle, 1880).