Ideology, mimesis, fantasy : Charles Sealsfield, Friedrich Gerstäcker, Karl May, and other German novelists of America / Jeffrey L. Sammons.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sammons, Jeffrey L.

Series:

University of North Carolina studies in the Germanic languages and literatures ; no. 121.

University of North Carolina studies in the Germanic languages and literatures ; no. 121

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

German fiction--19th century--History and criticism.

German fiction.

America--In literature.

America.

Physical Description:

xiv, 342 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Chapel Hill, N.C. : University of North Carolina Press, 1998.

Summary:

This study of German fiction about America in the nineteenth century concentrates in detail on thee writers: Charles Sealsfield (Carl Postl, 1793-1864), an escaped Moravian monk who came to New Orleans in 1823 and during the 1830s and 1840s wrote the first major German novels about the United States; Friedrich Gerstacker (1816-1872), who, among his many experiences in America as a young man, lived as a backwoodsman in Arkansas and who later produced a large body of fiction, travel reportage, and emigration advice; and Karl May (1842-1912), who, though he knew nothing about America beyond what he could read in books such as those by Sealsfield and Gerstacker, wrote famous adventure stories set in an imaginary West and became the bestselling writer in the German language, whose sales by now have exceeded 100 million volumes.

Sammons interweaves his discussion of these three writers with excurses into the emergence of the German Western and anti-Americanism in German fiction.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 303-336) and index.

ISBN:

080788121X

OCLC:

38030228