Karl May's Colportage novels

Karl May's Kolportageromane are five novels that the writer Karl May wrote between 1882 and 1888 for the Dresden publisher H. G. Münchmeyer . The novels were originally sold as delivery novels or - in the case of the Uhlan's love - newspaper novels on the way of colportage and later reprinted in various forms.

There are:

• Forest rose or the avenger hunt around the earth (1882–84)
• The love of the Uhlan (1883-85)
• The Prodigal Son or The Prince of Misery (1884–86)
• German hearts - German heroes (1885–88)
• The road to happiness (1886-88)

History of origin

From 1870 to 1874 Karl May was imprisoned in the Waldheim prison for theft and embezzlement . According to May, it was during this time that his parents made contact with the Dresden colportage publisher Heinrich Gotthold Münchmeyer . He hired May as an editor after his dismissal and gave him a completely free hand. May founded several magazines and began writing his first travel stories on the side.

When Münchmeyer tried to get him to marry his sister-in-law, May left the publishing house. In 1882, however, he was persuaded to write a novel for Münchmeyer, whose publishing house was on the verge of ruin. Over the next six years May wrote the five works called "Münchmeyer novels", all of which were sold in over 100 deliveries and earned him a fee of 35 and later 50 marks per issue. He agreed with Münchmeyer that not a word should be changed in the manuscripts and that the rights should revert to him after a circulation of 20,000 subscribers. Then he broke off all bridges to Münchmeyer.

In 1899 May learned during his trip to the Orient that the publishing house had been sold by Münchmeyer's widow Pauline and that his novels were still being printed, although he had expressly forbidden this beforehand. May hired a lawyer, but could not prove his agreement with Münchmeyer, because his wife had burned the letters out of friendship with Pauline Münchmeyer. The publisher's buyer, Adalbert Fischer, threatened him with a lawsuit for damages if he wanted to prevent him from printing the five novels.

In the following trials, which lasted well after May's death, his criminal record was revealed and his alleged trips to the Wild West and the Orient exposed as lies. He was also accused of being immoral in his Münchmeyer novels. May, however, claimed that the offensive passages were only edited into the manuscripts afterwards. But since his original manuscripts had been lost, this could no longer be proven. After May's death, the trial ended with Pauline Münchmeyer having to pay 25,000 marks in damages.

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Forest rose or the avenger hunt around the world

The " Waldröschen ", which appeared in 109 deliveries from December 1882 to August 1884 and comprised 2,612 pages, is considered to be the most successful colportage novel of the 19th century. It first appeared under the pseudonym Capitain Ramon Diaz de la Escosura and the title Forest Rose or The Avengers Hunt Around the World. Great revelatory novel about the secrets of human society .

In the 1860s, the German doctor Karl Sternau succeeds in healing the Spanish Count Emanuel de Rodriganda and marrying his daughter Rosa. But Cortejo, the count's villainous steward, had long before swapped his own son for the count's heir in order to get Rodriganda into his hands. He lures Sternau to Mexico, where he locks him in an old pyramid. It was only years later that Lieutenant Kurt Helmers, the fiancé of Sternau's daughter, the "forest rose", was able to free his future father-in-law.

In this story May integrated the dispute between the Napoleon III. appointed Emperor Maximilian of Mexico and the Mexican President Benito Juárez . He clearly sided with the Indian Juarez. He portrayed the Austrian Archduke Maximilian as a person of integrity, but wrongly advised. The figure of the bourgeois officer Kurt Helmers, who is an affront to the arrogant nobles of his regiment, is also remarkable.

The Uhlan's love

The Uhlan's love. May first published the original novel from the time of the Franco-German War from September 1883 to October 1885 in 107 deliveries and 1,724 pages in the magazine Deutscher Wanderer .

Shortly before the Battle of Waterloo , the Prussian officer Hugo von Königsau (edited by Karl May Verlag: Hugo von Greifenklau) falls in love with the French Margot Richemonte. Her stepbrother Albin tries to prevent the connection and to kill Königsau. He does not succeed, but years later he can ruin the family and kidnap Königsau's son Gebhardt. In 1870, Königsau's grandson Richard, disguised as a hunchbacked tutor, set off incognito to clarify the tragic family secrets in Richemonte's castle and to track down French war preparations against Germany. He falls in love with Richemonte's beautiful (adoptive) granddaughter Marion.

In the first part, the Prussian field marshal Blücher , as a curious age, plays an important role. Even Napoleon has a short, but little creditable appearance. May presented the war of 1870/71 as if it had been forced upon the Germans by the French. In general, May portrays the Germans as peace-loving, unprejudiced citizens of the world who are, however, repeatedly confronted with fanatical, “typically French” nationalism. May only shows a few positively drawn French people, and when they do, they usually explain that they prefer Germany to their fatherland.

The Prodigal Son or The Prince of Sorrows

May's third Colportage novel first appeared on 2,411 pages in 101 deliveries as The Prodigal Son or The Prince of Misery. Novel from criminal history . Its publication began with the final delivery of the forest rose in August 1884 and ran until July 1886. The story takes place primarily in Dresden and, in addition to local color, contains sketches of social conditions of the time.

The forester's son Gustav Brandt is charged with the double murder of his patron, the Baron von Helfenstein, and the fiancé of his daughter Alma. With the help of two blacksmiths who observed the real murderer, Helfenstein's nephew Franz, he is able to escape. In Madagascar he gets rich from diamond discoveries and returns to his homeland 20 years later as the “Prince of Befour”. There he takes up the fight against Franz von Helfenstein. He functions in secret as an ominous "captain" who systematically ruins poor people and then forces them into his service. As his adversary, Gustav Brandt stylized himself as an equally mysterious “prince of misery”, who saves the victims of these machinations and alleviates their social misery. He also finds Alma from Helfenstein's brother Robert, who allegedly died in a fire. In the end he defeats his arch enemy Franz von Helfenstein, marries Alma and is defeated by the king to be Baron Brandt von Brandtenstein.

Part of the story takes place among the weavers of the Ore Mountains. In describing the misery, Karl May referred to the experiences of his childhood, e. B. the starvation of his grandmother or the devastating leaf epidemic in his family. The conditions he describes resemble in many ways those in Gerhart Hauptmann 's work Die Weber, written a few years later . May even campaigns for understanding for smuggling born of necessity. He is always responsible for the misery, however, only individual villains.

After the “prince of misery” of the Seidelmann family of manufacturers has put an end to the trade, the world is all right again. This part of the novel was broadcast in 1986 in the GDR as a two-part television film under the title " Das Buschgespenst " . a. with Kurt Böwe and Ulrich Mühe .

German hearts - German heroes

German hearts - German heroes German hearts, German heroes were accidentally written on the cover of the exercise book and advertised with the subheading that it came from the author of “Waldröschen” and “the prince of misery” . The 109 deliveries appeared from December 1885 to January 1888 and comprise a total of 2,610 pages.

Together with the quirky Lord Eagle-nest and the mysterious hero Oskar Steinbach, the young Hermann von Adlerhorst sets out to look for the various members of his family who had been scattered around the world by a tragedy twenty years earlier. Their traces can be found in the Orient, the Wild West and Siberia.

The books Derwisch , In the Valley of Death and Zobeljäger and Kosak , published in the edition of Karl May's Gesammelte Werke , are based on this serial novel, with passages being shortened, removed, rewritten or supplemented by the editors of Karl May Verlag. In addition, a number of figures from the original work were renamed as those from May's later travel stories.

The way to luck

On the title page of Der Weg zum Glück the publisher already advertised the author as the author of “Waldröschen”, “Verlorner Sohn”, “German Heroes” etc. May reported on 2,616 pages in 108 deliveries from July 1886 to August 1888 very interesting events the life and work of King Ludwig II of Bavaria , as the subtitle of the book edition promised.

The heroes of this novel are a quirky Bavarian original, called Wurzelsepp, and the Bavarian King Ludwig II. Both intervene in the fate of several people and ensure that they can be happy. The poor dairymaid Magdalena, the godchild of Wurzelsepp, who was abandoned by the poacher Krickelanton, becomes a celebrated opera singer and Countess von Senftenberg. A large part of the novel takes up the fight against the machinations of the two villains "Peitschenmüller" and "Silberbauer", who murdered a princess in Wallachia a long time ago and kidnapped her child.

In this novel, Karl May tries to create local color with a self-made and extremely flawed Bavarian dialect . The story ends with the death of the Bavarian fairytale king. The Wurzelsepp is certain that Ludwig II was murdered and dies afterwards of a broken heart.

Adaptations by the Karl-May-Verlag

The alleged immoral changes to his manuscripts ("billowing breasts", "fragrant clothes, the transparent veil of which the charming shapes were more suspected than concealed") were made by Karl May, who claimed himself towards the end of his life, through reading his works To form "noble people", violently excited.

In the combat pamphlet Ein Schundverlag und seine Helfershelfer (Dresden 1905), for example, he asserted: “I am conducting the well-known trial for no other purpose than to destroy this terrible poison [the five novels], by which the ethical health of our people's soul must perish . ”With the current state of research, however, the changes have not been all that great. In his investigation of Karl May and his Münchmeyer novels, the author Ralf Harder even comes to the conclusion that most of the slippery passages probably came from May himself, and that the notoriously sloppy Münchmeyer publishing house mainly contributed to typographical errors .

Nevertheless, May's widow and estate administrator Klara gave Karl May Verlag permission in 1930 to rework the works according to their own ideas. Not only were the objectionable passages removed, but numerous weaknesses in these novels, which were written very quickly and often in a derogatory manner, were ironed out. Lengthy dialogues and unnecessary subplots are missing in the revisions. In addition, the dramaturgy was significantly improved, as Karl May tended to tell his readers the real facts behind the intricate stories right from the start.

However, the novels are often hardly recognizable - also because many names have been changed. For example, the Königsau family became the Greifenklau family or Gustav Brandt became Gerhard Burg. In addition, only the Waldröschen (volumes 51–55 and 77) and Die Liebe des Ulanen (volumes 56–59) were published in their original size. The prodigal son was completely split up. Gustav Brandt's core story appeared in Der Fremde aus India (Volume 65), the parts set in the Erzgebirge in Das Buschgespenst (Volume 64), other storylines in The Prodigal Son (Volume 74), Slaves of Shame (Volume 75) and The Hermit (Volume 76).

The core plot of German Hearts - German Heroes can be found in Volume 61-63, further parts in Allah il Allah (Volume 60) and The Riddle of Miramare (Volume 78).

The novel The Way to Happiness is divided into the story of Wurzelsepp (volume 68) and that of the two millers (volumes 66 and 67). There are other parts in Der Habicht (Volume 73), The Riddle of Miramare and Conspiracy in Vienna (Volume 90).

More problematic, however, is that the novels are full of prejudices and clichés. During the revision in the 1930s, the zeitgeist of the late 19th century was exchanged for that of the time. For example, the anti-Semitism already existing in May in the prodigal son is even more pronounced in the revision of the Karl May Verlag (volumes 64 and 65).

In contrast to Karl May Verlag, other publishers, such as Weltbild , used the original texts for their editions.

Meaning and reception

The five Münchmeyer novels, regardless of the changes that did not come from Karl May, are considered the low point of his work and pure commissioned work. But it is precisely the prejudices and clichés presented with almost unbelievable naivety - garnished with hair-raising adventures - that make them interesting again.

“Anyone who undertook to dedicate a pathography to the German people of the 80s and their style, be it sociologically or psychologically, would find an anamnesis material here that is not so pronounced in every epoch leaves behind. "

- Hans Wollschläger

“May's Münchmeyer novels are a reflection of the Wilhelmine era and accordingly say a lot about this epoch, more than some history books are usually able to do; also the outdated language belongs to it - one finally recognizes the human being by the language! "

- Ralf Harder

For a long time, the arrangements that appeared in the Radebeuler and Bamberg “Gesammelte Werke” were the only tangible text witnesses to May's Münchmeyer novels. For Karl May research, however, these issues were worthless because of the degree of processing. A serious academic examination of this quantitatively significant oeuvre was therefore only possible - and quickly set in - when the novels were published as unedited reprints from 1969, primarily by the Olms-Verlag. All May's delivery novels are now also available as reliable texts within the historical-critical edition of Karl May's works.

See also

• Karl May's Collected Works

literature

• Ralf Harder: Karl May and his Münchmeyer novels. An analysis of authorship and dating . (= Materials for Karl May research 19). Ubstadt / Bruchsal 1996, ISBN 3-921983-28-2 . Internet version of the Karl May Foundation, Radebeul 1999
• Christoph F. Lorenz: Karl May's contemporary colportage novels . Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1981, ISBN 3-8204-7069-7 . (also dissertation, University of Cologne 1981)

Web links

• Karl May Foundation (with original texts from all five novels)
• Overview of the issues from 1963
• Karl-May-Wiki with additional information about the history, background and aftermath
• Concordance list for the various (current) editions

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Karl May. My life and striving . Olms, Hildesheim 1975, p. 175.
2. ↑ Karl-May-Filme.de
3. ↑ Wolfgang Hermesmeier, Stefan Schmatz: Origin and expansion of the collected works. In: Lothar u. Bernhard Schmid (ed.): The cut diamond: The collected works of Karl May. Karl-May-Verlag, Bamberg 2003, pp. 442-448.
4. ↑ Analysis of the Karl May Foundation ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . 
5. ↑ Hans Wollschläger: Karl May in self-testimonies and image documents . (= Rowohlt's monographs. 104). Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1965. (Second, improved edition. Under the title Karl May: Outline of a broken life . Diogenes, Zurich 1977, p. 69.