''Emil and the Detectives'' () is a 1929 novel set mainly in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

, by the German writer

Erich Kästner Emil Erich Kästner (; 23 February 1899 – 29 July 1974) was a German writer, poet, screenwriter and satirist, known primarily for his humorous, socially astute poems and for children's books including '' Emil and the Detectives''. He receive ...

and illustrated by

Walter Trier Walter Trier (25 June 1890, Prague – 8 July 1951 Craigleith, near Collingwood, Ontario, Canada) was a Czech-German illustrator, best known for his work for the children's books of Erich Kästner and the covers of the magazine '' Lilliput' ...

. It was Kästner's first major success and the only one of his pre-1945 works to escape

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

censorship. The book was immediately popular and the original version sold an initial two million copies. First published in English in 1931, it has never been

out of print __NOTOC__ An out-of-print (OOP) or out-of-commerce item or work is something that is no longer being published. The term applies to all types of printed matter, visual media, sound recordings, and video recordings. An out-of-print book is a boo ...

and has been translated into at least 59 languages. It is Kästner's best-known work. Compared with similar literature at the time, its most unusual aspect was its realistic setting in a contemporary Berlin peopled with some fairly rough characters, not in a sanitized fantasy world; also that it refrained from obvious moralizing, letting the characters' deeds speak for themselves. Emil was the first name of Kästner's father.

References

External links

' project at the Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin (Central and State Library)
1929 German-language novels Novels by Erich Kästner German children's novels Novels set in Berlin Children's mystery novels German novels adapted into films 1929 German novels 1929 children's books {{1920s-mystery-novel-stub