Nemsi Books Publishing Company

We specialize in publishing the English translations of Karl May who is Germany’s most published author. His world famous “Traveler’s Tales” have excited young and old for more than a century. Here, for the first time, is an ever growing collection of his writings, translated into English by Karl May enthusiasts.

Our mission is to bring the enduring message of peace, tolerance and harmony, championed in Karl May’s original manuscripts, to the English speaking world.

But we do not restrict ourselves to purely Karl May’s work. We also publish other works of humanitarian interest.

Hence if you have written a book, what comes next? Obviously you would like to see it published.
But who will publish it for you?
There are many publishers, but few will take a risk with a first time author.
Our Publishing Company has a number of solutions for you here.

Subscription Required : THE NEW YORKER, April 09, 2012.

How nice to welcome Old Shatterhand in America again! The article by Rivka Galchen called “Wild West Germany” brought after some time again the famous German writer Karl May (1842-1912) to the attention of the ‘The New Yorker’ [Apr. 09, 2012 edition] readers. Exactly at the place where Karl May landed in 1908. Rivka Galchen described nicely what is happening today at May’s birthplace and even touched the fact that generations of Europeans are still fascinated by his writings as were people a century ago. She left out two halves of May’s other literary output, the Oriental stories and the philosophical books of his later years. However Rivka Galchen is writing as an American and for Americans and did this very well. Thanks to the article letters could be sent again from America to the so famous laconic address – as in the past did the famous Frontier men and the Indian chiefs: May – Radebeul – Germany. And as far as we know such letters did arrive safely indeed!

Somehow less informative are Rivka Galchen’s notes on Karl May’s life story. As fresh and colourful are her observations from today on May’s legacy, so somehow out of touch and biased is her version of what Karl May experienced whilst alive. I detect in the article a continuation of the old accusation by May’s enemies of him being a thief, a liar and a “Hochstapler” [trickster] when she says “a typically May-like ring of both truth and falsehood.” Karl May was a creative writer combining freely fiction with facts. This is not a crime! May also did not claim he was “mysteriously cured” from his vision impairment as a child. He suffered from Xerophthalmia and after coming into the hands of good doctors and being prescribed vitamin D and diet rich in vitamin A, his vision returned. Karl May did not claim to have been “mysteriously cured” but realistically described what happened to him in his biography.

The Rivka Galchen’s statement that Karl May “was later fired from a teaching job for stealing a pocket watch” is today not considered correct. Rivka could have gone to contemporary research on Karl May before repeating this slander of yesteryears. Also the “rumors [sic!] of an affair with a married woman” are fantasies created lately in another attack on Karl May’s integrity.

What attracted my attention and astonishment is Rivka Galchen’s statement “May ran the prison library, where he read a lot of Baedeker.” The idea of a prison library stuck up in those days with travel guides seems ludicrous. May never ever in his description of what books were available there mentioned any travel guides.

Karl May would not have been sentenced to prison terms nowadays. This has also been described lately and Rivka Galchen could have made the effort to peruse latest literature on Karl May instead of using old outdated sources. Rivka wrote “In the first volume of the Winnetou series, ‘Winnetou, the Apache Knight’”? This seems rather confusing to her. Book under this title appeared in the US in 1898 as a pirated version not mentioning Karl May’s name as the author. Instead it was published by Benziger Brothers under the name of the author who pirated it and bowdlerized the text as: “Taggart, M.A.: Winnetou, the Apache Knight.” Taggart also bowdlerized Karl May’s Winnetou I and II: “Taggart, M.A.: The Treasure of Nugget Mountain.” Benziger Brothers, USA 1898. Was Karl May right in complaining that his writings had been printed without his consent and he never received a penny as an author?

Rivka Galchen erroneously quotes the following sentences as written by Karl May, when in fact it comes from the pirated translated version by M.A. Taggart: “back home in Germany, Old Shatterhand was Jack Hildreth, a fourth child, and, by his own confession, a “dull kind of person, especially on a rainy day when I have to sit in the house alone with him.” And she continued with another fabrication by M.A. Taggart presenting it as an original Karl May’s sentence: “And so I found myself in a new and strange life, and beginning it with a new name, which became as familiar as dear to me as my own.”
There are more inaccuracies in the article: “A tale of a split soul, given to him by a good priest while he was in prison” writes Rivka Galchen. This historically documented person was not a priest, but a simple Catholic catechist Johannes Kochta. The description of the “split soul” from Karl May’s pen is clear nowadays to anyone who studied psychology. It is a very important piece to understand Karl May.

What is completely left out from the article is Karl May’s message in all his writings: peaceful solution of conflicts, equality of races, racial tolerance and motivation to become a better person. All this shortly before the WWI, which became a perversion of all what Karl May stood for in his books. The first female Nobel Prize winner for peace, Bertha von Suttner, appreciated Karl May’s work, as also did Albert Einstein. It is regrettable that the article does not mention this aspect of Karl May’s work worth preserving to posterity.

Dr. William E. Thomas, M.D.

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My speculation on how these letters eventually came into my hands is a bit of romantic daydreaming. I like to think that Yuri must have had a hand in binding them into the heavy leather cover. He would have the means to do that. I want very much to think that he and Trintje actually traveled to Gerhard’s original home and got to meet and embrace Katarina. What a lovely meeting that would have been. At least, that is my fantasy. I like to think she had an audience with a prince and his wife. That would be something that no Mennonite would ever pass up, and then receiving official documents from them; that would carry some considerable weight. It would be all over town in the blink of an eye. Katarina could then have confronted her father-in-law who, after reading the letters became contrite and penitent, and thus passing them on to another of his sons and so on down the line. Unfortunately that could not have happened because David the father died on September 25th of 1802, about the time of Gerhard’s last letter.

But I cling to the notion that such a meeting took place and by it, Katarina’s life was thus fulfilled and Gerhard’s letters were not in vain. I fantasize that she kept the letters close to her until her demise. Perhaps a brother of Gerhard’s received them to pass them on to the next generation. I’ll not waver from that thought. The time is getting shorter in my own life until I may have the opportunity to join him where he now is. I’ll ask him about it.

The softcover book can be found here

The original works of Karl May entered the public domain in 1963, fifty years after the death of their creator. But the freedom that this status should have granted to the works of Karl May was short-lived.

One only needs to consult the German Trademark Register and search for the term “Winnetou” to see how a famous name has been and still is exploited by those who have not yet understood the message that Karl May embedded in his “Traveler’s Tales”.

Winnetou, the fictional noble Indian Chief, who was born behind the dark prison walls during Karl May’s captivity was to be the focus of a quest for the lost human soul. Now, however, this fictional character and his fictional blood brother ‘Old Shatterhand’ are the objects of the very greed and avarice that Karl May spoke against in his many novels. Karl May wrote in his autobiography

I want to tell parables and fables, with the truth being hidden deeply inside, the truth which by other means cannot be perceived, yet. I want to derive light from the darkness of my prison life. I want to convert the punishment, which has come upon me, into freedom for others …. I want my readers to stop regarding life as a merely material existence. This view is a prison for them, beyond the walls of which they are unable to see, to behold the sunny, free, wide land.

And yet, greed, avarice, legal wrangling and the drive to bind a fictional noble Indian Chief and his companion to one person and to one company continues unabated. Karl May wrote in his autobiography

For whom were my books written? Quite naturally for the people, for all the people, …

What better homage can we show for Karl May’s work than to cease all this squabbling and make his books available to all the people of this world without wanting to own the names of the famous characters he created.

Have we learned nothing from Karl May’s writings?

Karl May admonished his readers in his autobiography

Since my books contain nothing but parables and fables, it goes without saying that the reader is supposed to think about them thoroughly and thus my books only belong in the hands of people, who are not only able to think, but also willing to bestow thought upon them.

Apparently this warning went unheeded.

Why do we oppose the trademark?

We do so because, had the truth been known, the names of Karl May’s famous fictional characters should have been rejected by the trademark office upon application.

The German courts have repeatedly held that famous characters from actual or literary history cannot be registered for goods (such as books or films) that may directly deal with classic characters.

Similarly, the Lanham Act states that, a mark must be able to identify and distinguish goods or services from those goods or services provided by others. (See 15 U.S.C. § 1127) and since fictional characters are often simultaneously associated with a number of different sources, including authors, producers, sponsors and even themselves, a fictional character’s name is unable to identify a single source and is therefore unable to serve the goals of trademark law.

We also believe that Karl May’s intent is better served if his fictional characters can be explored and not exploited. Karl May wrote in his autobiography

In my entire work, not including the humorous short stories and village-tales from the Ore Mountains, there is not a single character that is fully developed and perfected by me, not even Winnetou and Hajji Halef Omar about whom I have written more than any others. After all, I am not finished with my own development yet. I am still changing. Everything within me is still forging ahead and so are my characters and all of my topics.

His fictional characters must therefore remain unfettered so that they can freely develop and grow within each of us.

As Karl May stated

The welfare of mankind demands that there shall be peace between the two, no more exploitation and bloodshed. I was resolved to constantly emphasize this in my books and to kindle in my readers the love for the red race and for the inhabitants of the Orient, which we owe them as fellow human beings.

Let us hope that this message will soon be understood by all.

Hardy Lahn of Dream Films announced on face book that a new Karl May adventure would soon be cooming to the silver screen. Read more here.

Now Constantin Film has entered the race by tapping Michael Blake of “Dances with Wolves” fame to write a new adaptation of “Winnetou”. Read more here

More information can also be read on these web sites.

• Hollywood Reporter
• Dark Horizons
• City on Fire
• Scr(i)nk
• Fun Fish

Check out the project on The Internet Movie Dababase

by Dr. William Thomas

I took the trouble to read Rob Schmidt’s article in the Newspaper Rock under the title “Rob questions Winnetou movie”. Let me just say that I was more than disappointed by the presentation of the writer Karl May [1842-1912]. The whole approach of Mr. Schmidt and that of the participants in the discussion suffer from one unforgivable flaw – that is to judge events which happened one hundred and thirty one years ago from the present day point of view. This is a common mistake not tolerated of course in any serious study of past events by critical scholars.

Rob Schmidt’s contribution to the discussion – given just one example out of many similar – states: “Winnetou’s Apaches are phony” does not resemble the true situation at the time of Karl May writing his book. Mr. Schmidt has no doubt read and heard of the Western Apache in Arizona, a legendary place in the Little Colorado Valley, north of their historic range, where they claim to have once lived in company with the Navajo and Pueblo peoples. This has been clearly described in the book by Thomas E. Mails: “The People Called Apache” [A Rutledge Book Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1974] in many pages in there. I trust Mr. Schmidt is familiar with this study. There were Pueblo dwelling Apache!

Continue reading “More Comments on the Newspaper Rock Article” »

I recently came across this article written by Rob Schmidt on Newspaper Rock

After much amusement, I could not resist the urge to set the record straight.

Rob Schmidt wrote:

In the introduction of the original “winnetou – the red gentlemen” from 1800 the author has a long prologue that the Native Culture is much better than the white conquerors. he describe the native culture as culture of honour and love to nature, and that he will inform all the people that this culture is much higher than our culture because they only take from nature what they need to survive – full of respect to mother nature! The bad guys in the story are mostly greedy white guys. And that opinion of an european is for my really surprising at that time.

Yes, the prologue is indeed long, but the above summation is far from accurate for Karl May wrote:

… If it is true that all living beings have a right to life, and this right is granted equally to the masses as well as to the individual, then the red man has that right no less than the white man. He may well speak out with authority about his social development in the context of his culture and according to his individuality. But it is openly stated that the Indian doesn’t possess the necessary qualities. Is that true? I say no! I don’t want to offer any proofs, since it is not my intent to write an all-encompassing dissertation on the subject. The white man has found time to evolve naturally. He went from hunter to herdsman, from herdsman to farmer and industrialist. But the red man did not find this time because it was not granted to him. Now he must make the giant leap from the lowest rung; that is, from hunter to the very top. And in making this demand on him, one has not considered that he could stumble and suffer life-threatening injuries. …

Continue reading “A Response to the Newspaper Rock Article” »

Listen how Old Shatterhand and Mr. Henry are brought to life by the actor Wolfgang Gerber!

Chapter 1 (German) 51:55 min. Winnetou I – Kapitel 1

The source of the text is from the historic-critical edition of the Karl May works published by Hermann Wiedenroth.

More Free Karl May Audio readings can be obtained from vorleser.net

Karl May’s epic Traveler Tales entered the public domain in 1963 and we are proud to offer these tomes in e-pub format here. The year 1963 was a pivotal moment in time, a crucial instance that would realize Karl May’s true desire. Read his thoughts and you will soon understand the purpose of his writing, for Karl May wrote: “A brightness filled the space between the four confining walls of my cell and they opened up. At first I felt, then saw and finally I understood the secret, the intimate connections between the miniscule and the macrocosm, the physical and the spiritual, the body and the mind, the finite and the infinite. It was now that I started to comprehend the deepest meanings of my grandmother’s dear, old fables. For whole nights I lay awake and pondered. I was chained to the deepest, lowest and most despised Ardistan and I sent all my thoughts up to the bright and free Jinnistan. I imagined myself to be the lost human soul that could not be found unless it finds itself. One cannot find one’s true self in lofty Jinnistan, one can only find it down here, in Ardistan, among earthly suffering, in the torment of mankind, eating the swill that the prodigal son ate, as mentioned in that biblical parable. My imagination started to arrange what I was searching for into a tangible shape so that I could seize and hold onto it. It dwelled and breathed within me. And not just in me but also outside of me, omnipresent, in every human being, even in the entire human race like one universal entity.”

And yet his tales, his parables that he desired to tell to the world, were to be bound for fifty more years after his death. Fifty years during which his writings were violated by those whose interests were not the lost human soul but the wealth his writings could generate. Even now his original handwritten pages are put up for auction so that the last penny can be squeezed from them. This is quite contrary to Karl May’s intent for he wrote:

“I want my readers to stop regarding life as a merely material existence. This view is a prison for them, beyond the walls of which they are unable to see, to behold the sunny, free, wide land.”

In the third volume of his most famous tale “Winnetou” he wrote these prophetic lines:

“This was how the Apache’s testament had disappeared, just as its author had passed away and just like the Indian people will disappear. They were richly provided for, but were not allowed to reach their full potential. Just like the shreds of the testament were scattered to the winds, so too does the red man drift across the far expanses that once belonged to him.”

Might Karl May have foreseen what would happen to his own writings? It is a question we should ponder for it is greed that drives this world and whilst this vice governs the heart of humanity, there is little hope that the lost human soul will be found.

But we must take heart, we must strive to seek what we have lost and to help us do that, we offer Karl May’s original writings to the English speaking world – not for profit or financial gain – not for fame or glory – but for the joy of finding that which was lost. May you also enjoy the rediscovery of the lost soul of mankind.