Books: Symbol

CASPAR HAUSER—Jacob Wassermann—Liveright ($3).

In his preface to English-speaking readers Author Wassermann explains that he is recounting a notorious incident of German history to illustrate a universal abuse; for in the youthful victim of a political intrigue he sees the symbol of all misunderstood children. By such explicit labeling the author hopes to establish his book as something more than the excellent historical novel which a large and enthusiastic European public thought it.

In 1828, Caspar Hauser, 17, stumbling alone into Nürnberg, stimulated general curiosity because he could neither walk nor talk better than a child of two. He could remember that he had always lived in darkness (presumably a cell), slept on straw, eaten only bread and water, played pathetically with a toy horse. This data formed the basis of a famous criminologist's charge that Caspar, a legitimate prince, had been criminally secreted and finally cast out by the House of Baden, lest he foil a court intrigue by claiming his rightful heritage. Controversy raged as to the truth of the charge or the likelihood of fraud. But the successive murders of astute criminologist and innocent boy himself left little room for doubt. Meanwhile Caspar, bandied conspicuously from one guardian to another—a double-faced English lord in the pay of the court, a neurotic, lustful woman, a self-righteous bully of a pedagogue—suffered tortures of childish bafflement at the heartless stupidity of his elders. Treacherous death was actually release.