Max und Moritz was initially rejected for publication, it was never meant to be a children’s book. It was Busch’s publisher Kaspar Braun who suggested offering it through the children’s book division of his publishing house rather than in the pages of the satirical weekly, Fliegende Blätter, as Busch had suggested. Braun paid Busch 1000 guilders, the equivalent of about 2 years’ pay for a craftsman, for the rights to his manuscript.