Sketches from my boyhood

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Justinus Kerner (1786-1862), a Swabian German Romantic poet, medical doctor, and investigator of parapsychological phenomena, is celebrated as a leading intellectual of his time. His notable study of a local clairvoyant, Die Seherin von Prevorst [The Seeress of Prevorst] (1829), was translated into English by Catherine Crowe in 1845. Later in life, Kerner embraced the Romantic interest in childhood, writing a collection of youthful reminiscences titled Bilderbuch aus meiner Knabenzeit [Sketches from My Boyhood] (1849). Influenced by memoirs like Goethe's Dichtung und Wahrheit [Poetry and Truth] and Jung-Stilling's Heinrich Stillings Leben [The Life of Heinrich Stilling], Kerner's work is a shorter, modest account of his boyhood in the Duchy of Württemberg. Comprising eighty-six loosely related sketches, it offers a vivid, charming, and at times serious narrative of growing up in Ludwigsburg, home to the magnificent Ludwigsburg Palace. While focusing on personal experiences, Kerner also acknowledges the impact of the French Revolution on German states like Württemberg. His Sketches from My Boyhood stands out as a gem of nineteenth-century German autobiographical writing.