author
Wilhelm Busch
1832–1908
Best known for the mischievous classic Max and Moritz, this German poet, artist, and satirist helped shape the visual storytelling that would later become comics. His work mixes playful humor with a sharp eye for human weakness.
7 Audiobooks
Pater Filucius
by Wilhelm Busch
Buzz a Buzz; Or, The Bees
by Wilhelm Busch
Kritik des Herzens
by Wilhelm Busch
Max und Moritz: Eine Bubengeschichte in sieben Streichen
by Wilhelm Busch
De muis, of De gestoorde nachtrust een berijmde geschiedenis in twaalf tafereelen voor jong en oud
by [pseud.] Braga Jr., Wilhelm Busch
Max and Maurice: A Juvenile History in Seven Tricks
by Wilhelm Busch
Schein und Sein: Nachgelassene Gedichte
by Wilhelm Busch
About the author
Born in Wiedensahl in the Kingdom of Hanover in 1832, Wilhelm Busch became one of Germany’s best-known humorists, as well as a painter and illustrator. Encyclopaedia Britannica describes him as a German painter and poet best known for drawings paired with satirical verse, while Wikipedia highlights how influential his picture stories became.
Busch studied art in Düsseldorf, Antwerp, and Munich, and later contributed to the comic magazine Fliegende Blätter. He is especially remembered for Max and Moritz (1865), the tale of two pranksters whose fast-moving, image-driven storytelling had a lasting influence on later comic art.
He spent his later years away from public life and died in Mechtshausen in 1908. Today he is remembered not just for jokes and rhymes, but for helping turn illustrated storytelling into a modern popular art form.