Ricerc@Sapienza

Following in the tradition of the hugely popular cautionary tales of Dr Heinrich
Hoffmann, and most notably Shock-Headed Peter or Slovenly Peter, the English-speaking
world continues to produce stories where children who dare to contravene societal norms suffer
calamitous consequences. This chapter offers a contrastive analysis between the tales from
Hoffmann’s collection and the ten stories in the first volume of David Walliams’ trilogy The
World’s Worst Children (2016) – with particular reference to the woes of Nigel, Nit-Boy, who
collects a fantastic quantity of lice in his hair. In both cases, humour is born from the juxtaposition
of moralizing attitudes and grotesque flouting of the rules but the “lesson”imparted in the
two texts appears very different. Although remarkably similar in some respects, this chapter
will argue that the two collections of cautionary tales are each very much the product of their
respective periods and that each author addresses their fiction to very different audiences.