Heinrich Hoffmann

Heinrich Hoffmann (1809–1894) was a German physician and writer from Frankfurt. He practiced medicine among the city's poor, taught anatomy and from 1851 directed the Frankfurt asylum for the insane, where he was a humane reformer. Unable to find a Christmas present for his three-year-old son in 1844, he wrote and drew a picture book of cautionary rhymes, which friends persuaded him to publish the next year as Struwwelpeter. It was translated across Europe, imitated endlessly and has never been out of print. Hoffmann wrote several more children's books and satirical verse, but always regarded himself as a doctor first.