Der Aegyptische Struwwelpeter: für brave Kinder von 3-12 Jahren [The Egyptian Struwwelpeter: for well-behaved children aged 3-12]

Wien: Carl Gerold's Sohn, [1895 or 1896]. Small quarto (25.5 × 19.7 cm). Publisher's quarter cloth; pictorial boards; 16 leaves of chromolithograph illustrations by Magdalena Netolitzky accompanying printed text. Wrappers and cloth spine somewhat worn; internally very good. First edition of this rare parody of the iconic nineteenth-century German children's book, notwithstanding the humorous imprint: 999. Auflage (999th Edition). The manuscript was created in 1894 by the three Netolitzky siblings from Vienna, as a gift for a family friend. As Baumgartner notes, it is based on the idea of an "Ur-Struwwelpeter" who lived 3000 years earlier in ancient Egypt and written on papyrus, conveyed by an optical effect used on each of the chromolithographed illustrations. The terrifying moral tales of the original book are here translated into the Egyptian context, so that misbehaved children get submerged into the Red Sea by Osiris or come tumbling down the pyramids. The edition was quickly removed from bookstores, due to a successful plagiarism lawsuit filed by the original publisher of the German ur-text, Rutten and Loening, although Gerold's Sohn attempted to reverse the court's decision. A translation was published in London in 1896, which did not face this problem and is thus more frequently seen in the trade, whereas the German edition is very uncommon. Fritz Netolitzky (1875-1945) was a German botanist and entomologist who went on to make numerous scientific contributions and held many professorial posts.

KVK, OCLC appear to show only one copy in North America. (Inventory #: P6277)