The Life of Courage

The Life of Courage: The Notorious Thief, Whore and Vagabond (German: Trutz Simplex oder Lebensbeschreibung der Ertzbetrügerin und Landstörtzerin Courasche) is a 1670 novel by the German writer Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen. It has also been published in English as Courage, the Adventuress and the False Messiah and The Runagate Courage.

It is a picaresque novel that follows Courage, an adventurous, promiscuous and sometimes abused woman during the time of the Thirty Years' War. It is a sequel to Grimmelshausen's novel Simplicius Simplicissimus, published in 1668, where Courage appears as a minor character.