Books: My Life and My Efforts

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[a] Kotow (Chinese): Kneeling and knocking one's head on the
floor as a gesture of homage. Here, the term is, of course,
used figuratively, meaning to be forced to humiliate oneself.

Later, I wrote for Pustet my novel in four volumes "Im Reiche des
silbernen Loewen" . I had just
reached the end of the second volume, when friends of mine among
the editorial staff of other publishers sent me a advertising
pamphlet from the "Hausschatz", the contents of which caused me to
repeat my previous refusal. I telegraphed Pustet that I had to
discontinue the work in progress and that I would write no further
word for him. He even had to send the unprinted manuscript in his
possession back to me, for which I returned the royalties to him
he had payed for it. I would not have mentioned this with a
single word, if not, a short time ago, I had received a threat,
though only from a very irrelevant party, to reveal facts from
that time. Therefore, I have used this opportunity to state the
truth here. And at the same time, I furthermore state for a fact
that I never stopped being on a personally friendly basis with
Councillor of Commerce Pustet and that I felt an honest joy and
satisfaction when, after about ten years had passed, he sent his
present editor of the "Hausschatz", the Royal Genuine Councillor
Dr. Otto Denk, to see me at Leinfelder's hotel in Munich, to
persuade me to work for the "Hausschatz" again. I then proceeded
to write the "Mir of Jinnistan" for him.

With this, I have jumped far ahead of Cardauns's accusations of
"abysmal indecency" against me and am now turning back to them, to
uncover the cause and the root of this matter. The cause is
Muenchmeyer, and the root is just the same. The facts which
contributed to this affair form a chain of events, extending over
more than thirty years, the links of which are intimately
connected on the levels of logic, business, and the law. Most of
it has been proven. Some of it is still hidden in the files,
waiting to be exposed to the light of day. I am not willing to
prejudge the pending lawsuits and will therefore only discuss
those points which have been fully resolved.

I have already said that Muenchmeyer knew about my prior
convictions. He even knew all the lies which had been added to
them. He wished very much that I would write a novel about this;
but I rejected this most decisively. In the circle of his friends
and acquaintances, I have not kept my past secret, but rather I
have told them about it without any reservations and explained in
detail my views on criminals and crimes, guilt, punishment, and
the penal system. Not a single member of the Muenchmeyer family
has a right to pretend not to have known about this. The workers
of the company found out about it, too, the typesetters, printers,
and all others, as well as the authors, contributing to the
publications. "May has been punished; he has been to prison",
they said, sometimes quietly, sometimes louder, but soon spreading
everywhere. Thus, it is fundamentally wrong to start talking
about sudden "revelations" or even about my "unmasking", now.
Whoever pretends that he had unmasked me, is lying.

It is an important fact that Muenchmeyer had a rather pronounced
preference for working with previously convicted people in
particular, for certain business reasons. Going through the list
of authors, both men and women, who have written for him, the
percentage of those with a criminal record is rather significant.
I already noticed this very soon after I had joined his company.
Walter [a], his main factotum, to whom he assigned all the task
nobody else was allowed to know about, had prior convictions as
well. Very soon after I had taken over as editor, he brought in a
former official of the postal services from Vienna, who had
embezzled money, to be one of my co-workers. When similar cases
occurred repeatedly and I asked him for his reasons, he answered:
"An author who has been punished can be made to put up with
anything, because he fears that his criminal record will be
disclosed." "So, this also includes me?!" I exclaimed, astonished
at such an honesty. "Nonsense!" he replied. "With you, the
matter is entirely different. We are friends! And after all,
you're no ordinary man, who would put up with anything! Even if I
would not honestly care about you, any attempt to cross you would
have to fail!" He tried his best to remove the mistrust which had
arisen in me, but it could not be made to disappear entirely and
was a contributing factor in my resignation, when I left my job as
an editor on account of that proposal of marriage. Later, when
after the time of six years I started to write the "Waldroeschen"
for him, these second thoughts against him resurfaced again in me.
But the exceptional position, he granted me in his personal life
and in his business, the exceptional royalties he payed me, and
most of all the objections my wife made at every opportunity
against my distrust, all of this influenced me so that I finally
returned to my previous trust in him.

[a] August Walther (1827-1900). The misspelling of this name
occurs throughout the original text with only one exception.
(In German, a "th" is pronounced the same as a "t".)

That I did not receive any proof sheets to read and therefore also
did not get my manuscripts of the novels I wrote for Muenchmeyer
back, I had already mentioned. Thus, I could not verify, whether
the printed version matched my original manuscript. But honesty
in this respect had been promised to me in such very certain terms
that I did not consider any fraud possible. I also thought it
impossible that Muenchmeyer could later ever pretend that he had
bought my novels with all rights not just up to the twenty
thousandth subscriber, but forever, because, first of all, I had
kept all of his letters, in which he repeated everything, we had
(not) [a] put into a written agreement, one thing after another,
and secondly I also had another fully valid proof in my hands,
that he did not own the rights forever. This was that he had
made, in writing, the attempt to obtain these rights later on. He
had done so using a reciprocal bond, which he sent to me by means
of this ex-convict factotum Walter, to have it signed by me. But
I rejected this extraordinarily cunning messenger with his bond.
This Walter was also the man who always assured me, in writing and
orally, upon my inquiries that those twenty thousand had not been
reached yet. Furthermore, I was not worried in the least, neither
for my rights nor for my "fine gratification". I could be sure of
my rights, and the Muenchmeyers were now financially so well off,
that they, as I thought, were more than just able to pay. That he
lost again on poorly selling novels what he earned on the
bestsellers, and that he had fallen in with bill-jobbers, causing
a severe depletion of his available funds, about all of this I
knew nothing. Thus, I was convinced that I could wait calmly and
that I had no reason at all to pose premature, and therefore
insulting, demands. Furthermore, my wife was thus completely
against all forms of urging and pushing in business matters, that
I now also had to fear for the outward peace of my home, if I had
not been as forgiving towards Muenchmeyer as she wished. The
publishers of colportage also maintain that, for their
bookkeeping, it would be much harder and require much more time
than with other publishers to prove how many regular subscribers
there are. All of the time, some of them are cancelling, and new
ones are joining in, therfore I was patient.

[a] I guess, the word "nicht" has been lost in the original
text. Otherwise, it makes no sense.

In the year 1891, I made the acquaintance of my current publisher
F.E. Fehsenfeld from Freiburg, Breisgau. I left it up to him to
publish in the form of books those works which had previously been
published by Pustet in Regensburg and made an agreement with him
that he would thereafter also publish those written for
Muenchmeyer. He instantly tackled those first ones, and they sold
excellently. We were both convinced that we would not be less
successful with the Muenchmeyer novels, but postponed the latter,
until the Pustet series would be complete. Each of the two series
was supposed to consist of thirty volumes. Wherever my past work
fell short of filling these volumes, I had to write more. For the
Pustet series, this turned out to be about ten volumes, which I
still had to deliver. This work left me no time to worry about my
Muenchmeyer stuff right now. It was also because of this that the
unexpected news that Muenchmeyer had suddenly died had to be, as
far as the business was concerned, entirely indifferent to me. I
only inquired who his legal successor was, and when I heard that
his widow continued the business with authorisation of the other
heirs, I for my part saw no reason to worry.

Then, something surprising happened. Mrs. Pauline Muenchmeyer
sent me a messenger, who had been instructed to draw out of me,
whether I might be inclined to write a new novel for her. This
messenger was also an "ex-convict". I sent him away, without
allowing him to successfully complete his task, not giving any
special though to the reason for his errant. At this time, I did
not know what I found out only much later, which was that
Muenchmeyers were not as splendidly to do as I thought. A family
meeting had been held, and the decision had been reached that the
situation should be improved by a new novel by Karl May. I had
neither the time nor the inclination to write it, but decided, in
case the attempt would be repeated, to enter into negotiations
regardless, to find out something definite about the success of my
previous novels. And the repetition of the attempt came. Mrs.
Muenchmeyer herself called on us in person. She visited us
repeatedly. She made her request. She even offered to pay the
royalties in advance. She also sent Walter, the factotum, and had
him write letters. I informed them that I would not be able to
deliver anything new, before the issue of the older novels was not
full resolved. First of all, I simply had to know the current
number of subscribers of my five novels; there had to be much
more than twenty thousand by now. Mrs. Muenchmeyer promised to
inform me. She invited me and my wife for dinner at her place, in
order to give me this information there. We came. She confessed
that those twenty thousand had been reached, and even for all
novels, not just one of them; but a precise calculation would
have to be done first, and this would be so immensely difficult
and time consuming in the colportage business. So, I should be
patient. As far as my rights were concerned, they were hereby
mine again, I could now fully use these novels for my own
purposes. Then, I asked her to send me my manuscripts, based on
which I would have them typeset and printed. She said they had
been burnt; in their place, she would send me the printed novels
and would have them, as a special favour for me, bound in leather,
first. This was done. A short time later, the books came in the
mail; I was again in control of my works - - - so I thought! Of
course, it had been impossible for me to publish them right away,
since those written for Pustet had to come out first. So, I put
these books aside for the time being, without being able to devote
any time to an examination of their contents. I had reached my
purpose, and writing a new novel was no longer up for discussion.
Nothing was heard from Mrs. Muenchmeyer any more. I attributed
this to the fact that now those "fine gratifications" were due,
the payment of which she was trying to avoid by keeping silent
about it. But I did not force the issue; I had more work to do
and could do without the money, if need be. I do not want to omit
the fact that my wife, during all of this time, made every effort
to keep me from being strict in my business affairs against Mrs.
Muenchmeyer. This preference of hers for Muenchmeyer and his
widow constitutes the main reason for the otherwise
incomprehensible forbearance I practised.

I was just about to begin a long journey to the Orient, when I
found out that Mrs. Muenchmeyer wanted to sell her business.
Right away, I wrote her a letter, warning her against selling my
novels along with it. I explained to her everything relating to
this and started my journey in upper Egypt. After I had returned
from there to Cairo, I found letters awaiting me there, from which
I found out that the sale had gone through in spite of my warning;
the buyer's [a] name was Fischer. I did not hesitate to write to
this gentleman. He answered me in a colporteur's tone that he had
bought the Muenchmeyer business only on account of the novels by
Karl May. All the rest would not be worth anything. He would
exploit this work of mine as much as he possibly could and sue me
for damages, if I would obstruct him in doing so. This tone
caught my attention. This was a style which is usually only used
on very worthless individuals. Probably, I had been described to
this Mr. Fischer, who was perfectly unknown to me, in a way which
caused him to be thus disrespectful. I wrote to my wife that she
should, instantly and in as much detail as possible, give me an
report about this case. For this purpose, I gave her the precise
route of my journey. For six weeks, I waited in Cairo, fourteen
days in Beirut, several weeks in Jerusalem. I wrote and
telegraphed, but in vain; no report came. Finally, I received a
few lines, in which she told me that she had been to Paris, but
nothing further. When in Massawa, the capitol of Eritrea by the
Red Sea, my Arabian servant brought me the mail, I was confronted
with a huge pile of German newspapers, from which I, not having
suspected a thing, learnt what had taken place at home in the
meantime against me. Fischer had taken advantage of my absence by
starting an illustrated edition of my Muenchmeyer novels, and in
doing so he sounded the trumpets of advertisement in such a manner
that everyone's attention had to be drawn towards this project.
My name had been given, though I had written these novels under
pseudonym, with only one exception, and had imposed the obligation
on Muenchmeyer, not to disclose this pseudonym under any
circumstances. At the same time, it turned out that the novels
were supposed to be published in revised versions. I became
terribly scared. I wrote home and instructed a friend there, whom
I could trust completely, to seek the assistance of a lawyer and
to conduct my case until I would return home, if necessary even in
court.

[a] The original book reads "Verkaeufer" instead of
"Kaeufer" . This must be a misprint.

This friend's name was Richard Ploehn, and he was the owner of the
"Saechsische Verbandstoffabrik" material> in Radebeul, which he had founded. You will soon
understand why I am going to talk about him for a while. He had
an extraordinarily happy marriage. His family only consisted of
him, his wife, and his mother-in-law. We were such close friends,
that we called each other "Du" [a] and, in an manner of speaking,
formed one single family. But to call not just me, but also my
wife "Du", was something Ploehn simply could not bring himself to
do. He assured me that this would be impossible for him. Mrs.
Ploehn is now my wife. Therfore, I am not permitted to talk about
her characteristics or even her outstanding qualities. The latter
ones were purely pertaining to her soul. My first wife had never
read any of my books. The purpose and contents of my writings was
just as unknown and indifferent to her as my goals and ideals in
general. But Mrs. Ploehn was an enthusiastic reader of mine and
had a very solemn and deep understanding for all of my hopes,
wishes, and intentions. Her husband was happy about this. He saw
my struggle, my tireless work, often up to three times a week all
night long, no helping hand, no warm glance, no encouraging word;
my soul was alone, alone, alone as always and at all times. This
pained him. Through his wife, he tried to persuade mine, to at
least take care of the disrupting task of answering the mail, but
in vain. Then, he asked me to permit his wife to do this; this
would be a great joy for her and him. I permitted these two, good
people to do so. From this time on, my correspondence was in the
hands of Mrs. Ploehn. Thousands of readers received answers
signed "Emma May", without knowing that it had not been my wife,
but a sisterly helper, who had eased my burden. More and more,
she worked herself into the world of my thoughts and my mail, so
that finally, I could, with every confidence, leave the entire
correspondence up to her. Her husband was proud of it. Almost
even prouder was her mother a very hard working, down to earth
woman, accustomed to a simple life, who would have liked so very
much to lend a hand, if it had been possible, for she also
possessed a soul which would not want to stay in the lower
reaches, but was seeking to rise upwards.

[a] See my footnote in chapter V. "Du" is the informal German
word for "you", which is only used to address close friends,
relatives, and children. Using it against anybody else would
be a sign of disrespect and an insult.

So, it was this friend whom I instructed to take my affairs as
forcefully as possible into his hands, and he did it as well as he
could. He hired a lawyer from Dresden to conduct the lawsuit and
informed the entire German press that I was momentarily in Asia,
but would not hesitate, after my return home, to defend myself
against the intended gross violation of my rights. More could not
be done for the moment, because it had been impossible for me to
abort my journey. From my wife, I received no news. She was
incapable of dealing with such serious business matters. But the
Ploehns wrote, though those letters only caught up with me in
Padang, on the island of Sumatra. They contained alarming news.
The press had started to write about my Muenchmeyer novels, and
had done this in a manner which was unfavourable for me. Rumours
were spread about me, which were partially ridiculous, partially
unscrupulous. The newspapers wrote that I was not in the Orient
at all, but that I was hiding, on account of a malignant disease,
in the iodine resort Bad Toelz, in upper Bavaria. If I had
suspected that this would go on in this deceitful, hateful, and
vicious manner for an entire decade, I would have interrupted my
journey after all and would have returned home as quickly as
possible. If I had done this, I would have been spared all this
inhumane torture and pains, which I have suffered during this long
time. But unfortunately, I did not know yet at this time what had
happened to my novels and what had been the guiding ideas
concerning me, which were going around in Muenchmeyer's business
and are still going around today. I believed that I could still
settle the matter from afar and thought that I needed to do
nothing more than to get precise information, from which the steps
to be taken would have to result. Thus, I wrote home that my wife
should come to Egypt with the Ploehns, where I would meet them in
Cairo. They came, though much later than planned, because Ploehn
had become ill on the way. What I found out from them did not
sound favourable at all, and it furthermore struck me as very
unspecific. The lawyer was still in the earliest stages of
preparing the case. Fischer had declared that he would fight back
with all possible means; he had bought my novels from Mrs.
Muenchmeyer; they were his righteously purchased property, payed
for in cash, with which he could do whatever he wanted. The
newspapers were biased against me. My Muenchmeyer novels were
described as trashy. I realised that a lawsuit against the
Muenchmeyers was unavoidable, and asked my wife for the documents
I would need for this.

I have already said that I had kept Muenchmeyer's letters. Their
contents had constituted such strong evidence in a lawsuit against
Muenchmeyer that I simply had to win it. These letters were,
together with other thing of equal importance, kept in a specific
drawer of my desk. Before my departure, I had especially informed
my wife about this drawer and its contents, I had especially
explained the purpose of the letters and had instructed her to
make sure that not even the smallest piece of paper would get
lost. When I now in Cairo asked her about these documents, she
reassured me that they were still lying there just as I had
entrusted them to her. Nobody had touched them. This calmed me
down, because it meant a sure victory in the lawsuit. When my
wife assured me of this, Mrs. Ploehn was with us and heard it.
She gave her an astonished look, but said nothing. At this time,
I did not particularly notice this; but later, remembering this
astonished, wide-eyed, disapproving look, I knew just too well
what it was meant to say. What had happened was that one evening
my wife had come to Mrs. Ploehn and had told her that she had just
burnt our marriage certificate, on account of the omen it
constituted. And some time later, she had told her in the same
laughing manner that she had now also taken the documents from the
desk drawer and had burnt them; by this, she wanted to prevent me
from suing the Muenchmeyers. Mrs. Ploehn had been horrified by
this, but was unable to change the fait accompli. Now, when she
had to listen to this assurance of my wife that the letters still
existed untouched, the first rupture of that internal split
occurred in her, which did not become externally evident until
nothing could be kept secret any more. We travelled to Egypt,
Palestine, Syria, and returned home via Constantinople, Greece,
and Italy. During this time, my wife had, upon repeated
questions, always stuck to her story that the documents were still
lying, perfectly unharmed, in the drawer in question. She finally
became angry and refused to permit any further mentioning of the
subject. But when I came home and the first thing I did was to go
to desk, I found the drawer - - - empty! Being held responsible
for this, she declared that she had indeed burnt and destroyed the
letters. She had always been a friend of the Muenchmeyers and
still was their friend today. Though she knew that I was right,
she would not stand for me suing the Muenchmeyers. Therefore, she
had burnt the papers. You can imagine how I felt, but I
controlled myself and did what I was already in the habit of doing
for many years in such cases: I was quiet, took my hat, and left.

In the meantime, the attacks in the press against me had been
getting more and more numerous and direct. I was accused of
having written piously and indecently at the same time. I had a
look at the novels, which Mrs. Muenchmeyer had bound for me, and
found that they diverged from my original manuscripts, they had
been changed. So, that was why the manuscripts had been burnt,
instead of being preserved for me! I was not supposed to be able
to prove the changes! The first thing I did was that I informed
the press of this and asked them to wait for the decision of the
court. Then, I most quickly filed the complaint. I did not want
to pursue the matter in a civil, but rather a criminal trial, but
met with such an opposition from my wife in this that I gave it
up. I sought advice from several lawyers, not just in Dresden,
but also in Berlin and elsewhere. I would have like so much to
sue them directly on account of the "abysmal indecencies", I had
been accused of, but I was assured unanimously that this was
impossible. A suit could not be concerned with abstract concepts,
but would have to be based on material reason. Most of all, I
would have to prove that I was the legitimate owner of the novels
concerned, and that I therefore had the right to sue. The best
thing would be to sue for a "rendering of the account". This was
done.

It was about at this time that the buyer of Muenchmeyer's
business, Mr. Fischer, called on me. I had no reasonable reason
for sending him away; he was allowed to enter. The conversation
was highly interesting, from a psychological point of view as well
as concerning the lawsuit. Fischer did not at all conceal the
fact that he knew that I had been to prison. He remarked that
whoever had such a skeleton in his closet would do very well to
refrain from going to court, otherwise the matter might very
easily come out differently than one might think. My novels would
now be his property. They had already been changed before, and
now he would have them rewritten once more, just as it would
please him. If I would conduct a lawsuit against him, this could
take more than ten years; but until then, I would be long since
ruined. But he had come to extend his hand to me, to avoid all
this trouble. I was supposed to pay him seventy thousand marks,
then he would give my novels up and surrender them to me with all
rights included. Then, it would be easy for me to silence the
entire excitement of the press against me with a single stroke.
He would be offering me his help in this. He would know more than
I would suspect. He knew the entire Muenchmeyer business. He had
been told everything. But he could not give the rights up for
less than seventy thousand marks, since he had payed one hundred
and seventy-five thousand marks.

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