Destiny (wordless novel)

Destiny (German: Schicksal) is the only wordless novel by German artist Otto Nückel. It first appeared in 1926 from the Munich-based publisher Delphin-Verlag. In 190 wordless images the story follows an unnamed woman in a German city in the early 20th century whose life of poverty and misfortune drives her to infanticide, prostitution, and murder.

The book was the first whose images were made with leadcuts instead of the more common woodcuts, and showed a greater depth of character and cinematic sense than previous wordless novels. The book inspired American artist Lynd Ward to tackle the medium, beginning with Gods' Man in 1929. Ward's success brought about an American publication of Destiny in 1930 which sold well. The book has impressed critics and has become one of the best-known wordless novels.

The book follows an unnamed woman in a German city in the early 20th century who lives a life of poverty and misfortune. She is the constant victim of her society—especially the men, such as her drunken, abusive father, and the traveling salesman who gets her pregnant. She is imprisoned for the murder of her unwanted child, and upon release turns to life as a prostitute. The police hunt her down after she murders a man with an axe, and as she jumps from an upper-floor window they shoot her dead.

Otto Nückel (1888–1955) was born in Cologne in the German Empire. He studied medicine in Freiburg before switching to art, which he studied in Munich in 1910–12. His paintings were less successful than the illustrations he made for magazines such as the satirical Simplicissimus and for books by Thomas Mann and E. T. A. Hoffmann.

In 1918, the Belgian Frans Masereel created the first wordless novel, 25 Images of a Man's Passion, and followed it up the next year with his longest and most successful work, Passionate Journey. Such books achieved particular popularity in Germany, where they sold in the hundreds of thousands in the 1920s. Masereel's woodcut artwork drew inspiration from the German Expressionists and displayed socialist themes of struggle against social injustice, themes that were to be common in the wordless novel genre.

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