Max and Maurice: A Juvenile History in Seven Tricks

by Wilhelm Busch

"Max and Maurice: A Juvenile History in Seven Tricks" by Wilhelm Busch is an illustrated story in verse published in 1865. This blackly humorous German tale follows two mischievous boys through seven escalating pranks that torment their neighbors—from trapping chickens and tormenting a tailor to filling pipes with gunpowder and stealing sweets. Told entirely in rhymed couplets, this inventive work has profoundly influenced comic strip history and remains deeply embedded in German-speaking culture, where the leering duo symbolizes childhood mischief itself.