Grimmelshausen himself understood his narrative main works as a cycle of ten books. Simplicissimus is the connecting figure of these works, no longer an hermit in Springinsfeld and Vogelnest I, but a socially engaged, satirical writer. The character of the "Archdeceiver" Courasche has occupied his imagination the most: an existence beyond traditional religious and moral norms, a woman who is not willing to give up her identity. However, through the shifting perspectives, the cycle also reveals the delusions of its first-person characters. The narrators of the Vogelnest novels expand this diversity of perspectives by incorporating the viewpoints of ordinary readers of the time on the contemporary "upside-down world." As an addition, the Rathstübel Plutonis is included, in which Grimmelshausen presents his characters, supplemented by members of all social classes, to a he.