History Creator / KarlMay

* CulturedBadass: Karl May presents his Avatar Old Shatterhand / Kara Ben Nemsi that way: Fluent in too many languages to number and well-versed in the cultures of people all over the world, he takes it good-naturedly when comical relief characters mock him as a "bookworm".

* UsefulNotes/GermanDialects: Karl May wrote a number of novels and stories set in Bavaria with people speaking Bavarian, but as he was a Saxon it is not in a form that made him new friends in Bavaria.

* OverlyLongName: Some of Charlie's Arabic aliases eminently qualify (see above), but the most famous example is Hadschi Halef Omar Ben Hadschi Abul Abbas Ibn Hadschi Dawuhd al Gossarah. Normally he is just called Hadschi (Hajji) Halef Omar, but reciting his full name is a shibboleth among readers. If you can't pass the "Hadschi Halef test" you're not a true Karl May fan. There's a song ''Hadschi Halef Omar'' by Music/DschingisKhan to help you learn to recite it.

** In the Orient cycle, he is called Kara Ben Nemsi (Karl, Son of Germans) and Baturu (the Brave), but he also uses several aliases, such as Scherif Hadschi Schebab Eddin Abd el kaderben Hadschi Gazali al Farabi ibn TabitMrewan Abul Achmed Abu Baschar Chatid Es Schonahar, Mauwatti El Pars-Effendi, Nusrani, Saduk el Baija, Mayor of Dimiat, Abu Machuf, Amm Selad, Mudir of Dscharabub, Iskander Patras, Ben Sobata, Abu es Sidda, Selim Mefarek, Hadschi Akil Schatir el Megarrib(nis) ben Hadschi alim Schadschi er Rani Ibn Hadschi Dajim Masschur el Azami ben Hadschi Taki Abu Fadl el Makurram, Abd el Mushala, Emir Hadschi Kara ben Nemsi ben Emir Hadschi Kara ben Dschermaniibn Emir HadschiKara ben Alemani. Further East, in China, he is called Kuang-Si-Ta-Sse. And there ''is'' more where this came from.

* TheChiefsDaughter: Nscho-tschi, daughter of Intchu-chuna, chief of the Apaches and Winnetou's younger sister. She fulfills some of the cliches while avoiding others completely: she loves Old Shatterhand once she gets to know him, but even then she would butt heads with him over certain culturally-related things (and she's more right than he is); she avoids any DamsellInDistress situation, but she is brutally killed.

* HeterosexualLifePartners: Old Shatterhand and Winnetou, Kara Ben Nemsi and Hadschi Halef Omar.

* HoYay: Between Charlie and Winnetou, aided e. g. by Karl May's delight in describing long, wavy hair, like that of the Apache chief. German writer Arno Schmidt tried to demonstrate a homoerotic subtext in the post-Freudian study ''Sitara'' (1963) which caused a bit of storm in a teacup, mainly because he tried to demonstrate -- often by [[Creator/JamesJoyce Joycean word-association games]] that every canyon appearing in a Karl May story really is a reference to the crevice between the buttocks and every cave really stands for an anus.

--> "I'd like a glass of beer, German beer!" said the Indian with a melodious, sonorous voice and in beautiful, fluent English. (...) "[[GratuitousEnglish Well]]!" he told the host, smacking his tongue, "Your beer is good. The Great Manitou of the white men has taught them many arts, and brewing beer is not the least among them."
* GratuitousEnglish: Naturally crops up from time to time in his Wild West stories.
* GratuitousForeignLanguage: Spanish, Arabic, Turkish, and many other languages crop up all over the place. Karl May pretended to be fluent in hundreds of languages, but in fact got most of what he used in his novels from encyclopedias and other books.

In his later years Karl May finally was able to journey to America and the Middle East that he had so vividly described in his books, and developed ambitions of being taken serious as a writer and thinker. His later works thus became more esoteric, but these now tend to be read only by the really serious fans. May also became a bit of a pacifist (his final public lecture in Vienna was attended by Bertha von Suttner) and, surprisingly for his time, voiced his disapproval of "Yellow Peril" stereotypes after the "Boxer" Rebellion in China in ''Und Friede auf Erden'' ("And Peace on Earth"), despite not having shown Chinese characters in a sympathetic light in earlier works.

Karl May was a German author of adventure and travel novels who lived from 1842 to 1912. As a writer he is both one the most read and most translated authors of the German langage; it is estimated that 200 million copies of books of his have been sold worldwide, half of them in Germany itself. Currently the edition of his works as produced by the Karl-May-Verlag in Bamberg consists of 94 volumes. He was also something of a modern [[TheMunchausen Münchhausen]], as he exaggerated, lied and committed petty crimes (for which he did time in prison) along the way. He became quite wealthy from his books and settled down in a big new home, the ''Villa Shatterhand'' (now a museum) in Radebeul near Dresden.

Many of Karl May's works have been adapted into other media, especially after his works fell into the public domain in 1962/63, for instance into open-air spectacle dramas, films, comic books, radio plays and television series.

Many of Karl May's works have been adapted into other media, for instance into open-air spectacle dramas, films and (after his works fell into the public domain shortly after his works fell into the public domain in 1963) comic books and television series.

Many of Karl May's works have been adapted into other media, for instance into open-air spectacle dramas, films and (after his works fell into the public domain shortly after his works fell into the public domain in 1963) comic books.

In his later years Karl May finally was able to journey to America and the Middle East that he had so vividly described in his books, and developed ambitions of being taken serious as a writer and thinker. His later works thus became more esoteric, but these now tend to be read only by the really serious fans. May also became a bit of a pacifist (his final public lecture in Vienna was attended by Bertha von Suttner) and, surprisingly for his time, voiced his disapproval of "Yellow Peril" stereotypes after the "Boxer" Rebellion in China in ''Und Friede auf Erden'' ("And Peace on Earth"), even though previously he usually had not shown Chinese character in a sympathetic light.

Karl May was a German author of adventure and travel novels who lived from 1842 to 1912. As a writer he is both one the most read and most translated authors of the German langage; it is estimated that 200 million copies of books of his have been sold worldwide, half of them in Germany itself. Currently the edition of his works as produced by the Karl-May-Verlag in Bamberg consists of 94 volumes. He was also something of a modern [[TheMunchausen Münchhausen]], as he exaggerated, lied and committed petty crimes (for which he did time in prison) along the way.

The two most well-known cycles of novels are set in the Orient (which for the purposes of the cycle began in the Balkans and was otherwise more or less congruent with the Ottoman Empire) and in the (Wild) West of the United States, respectively and have been adapted into two series of films, starting with ''Film/DerSchatzImSilbersee'' (1962). While he did not bring TheWestern to Germany -- for that one has to thank James Fenimore Cooper and Friedrich Gerstäcker (1816-1872) -- his novels to a large extent defined the way that genre developed in the German-speaking world, notably starting a tradition of sympathizing with Native Americans as much as, if not more than, the white frontiersmen. They are full of noble savages, MightyWhitey and other tropes that makes many people cringe now, but they can still be enjoyed for the insane attention to detail, even though lots and lots of it was made up.

Karl May was a German author of adventure and travel novels who lived from 1842 to 1912. He is pretty much solely responsible for bringing TheWestern to Germany. He was also something of a modern Münchhausen, as he exaggerated, lied and committed petty crimes (for which he did time in prison) along the way.

The two most well-known cycles of novels are set in the Orient (which for the purposes of the cycle began in the Balkans and was otherwise more or less congruent with the Ottoman Empire) and in the (Wild) West of the United States, respectively and have been adapted into two series of films, starting with ''Film/DerSchatzImSilbersee'' (1962). May's novels are full of noble savages, MightyWhitey and other tropes that makes us cringe now, but they can still be enjoyed for the insane attention to detail, even though lots and lots of it was made up.

* AuthorAvatar: The hero of a Karl May novel is often this (many are also written in first-person narration). In-story it is also made clear that the man going by the name Kara Ben Nemsi in the Orient cycle is the same as the ''Westmann'' Old Shatterhand alias Charlie. In his later years a more self-conscious Karl May also interpreted Kara Ben Nemsi's sidekick as a personification of his own anima.

* GratuitousForeignLangage: Spanish, Arabic, Turkish, and many other languages crop up all over the place. Karl May pretended to be fluent in hundreds of languages, but in fact got most of what he used in his novels from encyclopedias and other books.

The two most well-known cycles of novels are set in the Orient (which for the purposes of the cycle began in the Balkans and was otherwise more or less congruent with the Ottoman Empire) and in the (Wild) West of the United States, respectively and have been adapted into films, starting with ''Film/DerSchatzImSilbersee'' (1962). May's novels are full of noble savages, MightyWhitey and other tropes that makes us cringe now, but they can still be enjoyed for the insane attention to detail, even though lots and lots of it was made up.

Karl May was a German author of adventure and travel novels who lived from 1842 to 1912. He is pretty much solely responsible for bringing TheWestern to Germany. He was also something of a modern Münchhausen, as he exaggerated, lied and committed petty crime along the way.

His novels are full of noble savages, MightyWhitey and other tropes that makes us cringe now, but his novels can still be enjoyed for the insane attention to detail, even though lots and lots of it was made up.

His novels are for of noble savages, MightyWhitey and other tropes that makes us cringe now, but his novels can still be enjoyed for the insane attention to detail, even though lots and lots of it was made up.

Karl May was a German author of adventure and travel novels who lived from 1842 to 1912. He is pretty much solely responsible for bringing The Western to Germany. He was also something of a modern Münchhausen, as he exaggerated, lied and committed petty crime along the way.

His novels are for of noble savages, mighty whitey and other tropes that makes us cringe now, but his novels can still be enjoyed for the insane attention to detail, even though lots and lots of it was made up.

* IdealHero[=/=]MartyStu: Old Shatterhand and WWinnetou are so perfect -- this level of pure awesomeness is not possible in real life, but his character are no less amazing for it.

His novels are for of noble savages, mighty whitey and other tropes that makes us cringe now, but his novels can still be enjoyed for the insane attention to detail, even though lots and lots of it was made up.