Literature Network » Hermann Hesse

LETTER FROM GERMANY; KARL MAY, STILL KING OF THE WILD FRONTIER

Content courtesy of

From: The Washington Post
Date: 19950302
Author:Rick Atkinson

Seen through unsympathetic eyes, the writer Karl May was a scamp and a phony. A convicted thief and swindler who spent eight years in prison, he remained a compulsive spinner of self-aggrandizing tall tales almost until his death in 1912.

But May's mendacity was also his muse. He remains the most popular German author of all time, a relentless scribbler whose 80 million hardback copies in Germany alone far exceed the sales of such literary heavyweights as Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich von Schiller. Translated into 28 languages, May's multinational ...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Other Articles on Hermann Hesse

About Our Articles: We've partnered with Highbeam Research to provide these article excerpts for your research needs. However, due to copyright laws, we cannot publish the whole article. To view these articles in full length you'll need to use the link above to access the free trial at Highbeam.