Christoph von Schmid

Christoph von Schmid (born Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schmid in Dinkelsbühl, 1768; died in Augsburg, 1854) was a German Catholic priest who wrote stories for children and religious works. He lived in the Kingdom of Bavaria and wrote in German. Today he is regarded as a forerunner of children's literature, because he gave his young characters and readers a spontaneous, spoken language at a time when few authors wrote for children at all.

His early years were shaped by faith and hardship. His father, an official serving the Teutonic Knights, died young, leaving the family poor and the eldest of eight children with household duties. Even so, Schmid kept up his studies, worked as a tutor in a well-off household and trained in theology at Dillingen. He was ordained in 1791 and worked as a curate. By 1796 he was in charge of a large school in Thannhausen, where he taught for many years.

It was there that he began to write. After lessons he read short moral tales to his pupils and then asked them to write the stories down themselves. Reading their compositions taught him how children thought and expressed themselves, and he shaped his prose to match. His stories often begin with a disruption to the happiness of good people, which divine providence eventually restores, and his aim was to encourage a practical piety in young readers. Genoveva de Brabante (1810) brought him his first major success, and The Easter Eggs (1816) was so popular that he began signing later tales as its author.

He later became a parish priest and a canon of Augsburg Cathedral, where he also oversaw schools. Honours came his way, including a noble title from King Ludwig I of Bavaria and an honorary doctorate in theology. He died of cholera in Augsburg in 1854, aged eighty-seven.

His legacy is twofold. His books were translated into twenty-four languages and were read in France from 1816 onward. Some dioceses, including several in North America, still use his religious books. He is remembered above all as a pioneer who wrote for particular children rather than for a market.