Max and Maurice -- A Juvenile History in Seven Tricks

Wilhelm Busch’s classic German picture-story, first published in English by Roberts Brothers in 1871, follows the gleefully destructive antics of two young pranksters through seven rhyming, illustrated “tricks.” Translated by Charles Timothy Brooks, this single-issue volume is a landmark of sequential art, widely regarded as a forerunner of the modern comic strip for its tight integration of text and expressive, caricatured drawings. Its influence on later humor and cartooning remains quietly foundational.