The Ultimate Fantasy Series Ranking

Author page

Otfried Preussler

2 universes Last reviewed 2026-10-02

Otfried Preußler (October 20, 1923 – February 18, 2013) was a German author of children's and young adult fantasy, born in Reichenberg (now Liberec), then Czechoslovakia. He excelled academically in German and foreign languages, graduating with distinction in 1942 and enrolling at Charles University in Prague, but was conscripted into the Wehrmacht before beginning his studies, serving as an officer-candidate on the Eastern Front and receiving the Iron Cross, Second Class, in 1943. Captured during Operation Jassy-Kishinev, he spent five years as a Soviet prisoner of war from 1944 to 1949, suffering typhus, malaria, and severe malnutrition. After his release, he trained as an elementary school teacher in Munich from 1951 to 1953 and later served as a teacher and headmaster at what became known as the Otfried-Preußler-School in Stephanskirchen, retiring early in 1970 to write full-time. His major works include Der kleine Wassermann (The Little Water-Man, 1956), Die kleine Hexe (The Little Witch, 1957), Der Räuber Hotzenplotz (Robber Hotzenplotz, 1962), Das kleine Gespenst (The Little Ghost, 1966), and Krabat (1971), a darker novel drawing on Sorbian folklore. His books have been translated into 55 languages and sold approximately 50 million copies. He won the German Youth Literature Prize twice, in 1957 and 1972, received the Federal Order of Merit, First Class, in 1993, the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art in 2010, and was a founding member of the German Academy for Children's and Youth Literature.

Universe(s)

Krabat

  • Core Canon books: 1
  • Current rank: #561 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 3.91
  • Award recognitions: 1 won

The Little Witch

  • Core Canon books: 1
  • Current rank: #106 in the official ranking
  • Weighted average: 4.22
  • Award recognitions: None recorded

Books

Aggregate across all universes

These are separate, unrelated universes; the totals below are plain sums of already-published per-universe facts, never a blended or averaged score across them. See each universe's own figures above.

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