George Bernard Shaw - "Overruled"

by Robert Louis Stevenson - "The Pocket R.L.S."

Jean de La Fontaine - "The Tales and Novels, v3: The Muleteer and Others"

Jean de La Fontaine - "The Tales and Novels, v7: The Falcon and The Little Dog"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: My Life and My Efforts

K >> Karl May >> My Life and My Efforts




I am only giving you an outline here. Like everything up to this
point, this can also be nothing but a sketch for now. But I am
feeling the need to transform the evil things which others have
done to me into something good for my fellow human beings. I will
enable those who had the same fate as I to draw those conclusions
from my inhumane persecution which are beneficial to them. What
good is all so-called "justice", all so-called "clemency of the
court", all so-called "humane punishment", all so-called "care for
released prisoners", if all it takes is one cunning lawyer or one
questionable article to destroy all the good things which had come
out of these efforts in a single moment? How can anybody expect a
fallen man to get up again and to be a better person, as long as
they fail to create better conditions as well in the surroundings
he is put back into? Does it encourage him to know that, in spite
of all efforts to become a better person, he must still continue
to be, as long as he shall live, the ostracised one, the
suppressed one, the one without rights, and will continue to be
like this, because he is forced to remain silent, no matter what
is happening to him, and to let them do everything to him?
Because if he does not do this, he is doomed. If he should go
ahead and seek his rightful justice against those who insult, rob,
and cheat him, his old files are dragged forward, and he is
pilloried. Let me just remind you that a public prosecutor form
Dresden, even just for purely "scientific" reasons, had nailed me
to the pillory, while I am still alive! He could not even wait
for my death and maintained that an article of the law gave him
the right to conduct this vivisection. In such a situation one
cannot help but look into the faces of those who talk about
humaneness, to see whether there might be a sardonic smile coming
through, revealing how things really are. And one feels, together
with the hundreds of thousands who are suffering from this, the
burning urge to take all of these articles, because of which
mankind's good intentions fail, drag them to the light of day, and
put them there where they must be, in order to be seen as what
they really are, - - - into the public, before parliament!

Here lies the point where my task has to begin. There have
already been several who have written down their experiences as
"released prisoners"; but what could be gathered from these
reports was so insignificant that it could not be of any benefit
for the general public. Here, it is not enough to show the small
lot of some people, but rather heavy, weighty fates of people,
which are also real fates in the classical sense. _And_my_fate_is_
_like_this._ I feel obliged, and it is my task, to put it into the
service of humaneness. What I mean by this will, so I hope, be be
evident from my second volume.

It was a part of this task of mine, that the public did not only
take an interest in Karl May the novelist, but also in the person
May, and that everything which could be held against the latter
had to be scooped up, down to the last drop. One thing was
justified criticism; the other was the work of executioners,
flayers, and knackers, I had to put up with without freeing myself
from this agony and torture by paying the money they demanded from
me. This was the spirits' furnace of my fable, where they were
bashing away at me, so that the sparks were spewing through every
newspaper. They even still spew today. But soon, this will
quiet down. The time of the hammer is over; only the file is
still to come, and then, it will be done. It goes entirely
without saying that all that pain, which came upon me, also had to
influence my other task, my task as a novelist. There also was
dross, and even more than enough. It also had to be removed.
Thus flew the soot, the filth, the dust, the hammer's blows. All
of this is still lying all around me, but now, it will be cleared
away, so that the clean, noble work shall begin.

It was quite generally a large, a hard, and a most painful process
of clearing up and out; not just inside of me, but also
externally, in my work, my profession, my house, my marriage.
Everything which had driven me to the furnace and the pain had to
go. It was replaced with what was clean and honest and what was
striving upwards with me, from Ardistan to Jinnistan, the land of
the nobly spirited people. This resulted in a separation of good
from evil, which could only be brought about by means of struggles
and sacrifices. Now it has been completed. The storms have
passed. Though there a still a few murky waters, murmuring here
and there, some lawsuit for gross insult, a complaint with the
public prosecutor's office, but this will also pass quickly, and
then, there will be calm and peace around me, so that I will
finally, finally obtain the time and space and state of mind, to
approach my real, my only and last "work".

Looking back at the last ten years, I am full of gratitude for
having survived them. There has never been a "persecution" like
the one against me for as long as earth exists in the literature
of any country, of any nation. There were tempests in the
newspapers, tempests in the courtrooms, tempests in my own house,
and tempests inside of me. Though my old, faithful, good friend,
the body, maintains that he could no longer go along with me, I am
still convinced that he will nevertheless be as willing and
understanding again as he has always been. He had to endure what
normally could not possibly have been endured. First, there were
for entire six years the three instances of the first trial
against the Muenchmeyers with all those upsetting and pathetic
aspects connected with it. Then followed the twenty-two months of
the investigation for perjury and incitement to perjury. This was
because the Muenchmeyers' lawyer had filed a complaint for perjury
with the public prosecutor's office against me and my witnesses,
after he had lost the trial. The prosecutor had, according to his
own statement, accepted the complaint to finally clear this matter
up. This struggle, lasting for almost two years, quite naturally
ended with the finding that no proof of any punishable act
committed by me or my witnesses could be established. But this
was not the end of it yet, for other things came on top of this,
which were almost even worse than everything which had happened
before: the first assaults by Lebius; a double pneumonia, which
kept me between life and death for several months; the
accusations my ex-wife brought up against me, my present wife, and
her mother, and by means of which she had sought to bring a severe
punishment upon us; the complaints with the public prosecutor's
office, which she had then filed by a friend against us on account
of these accusations; the same complaints being repeated by
Lebius in Berlin. Luckily, this ex-wife had voluntarily told and
confessed everything which she then denied after the divorce,
during the divorce proceedings in the presence of perfect
strangers without any interference on my part, so that she could
only have been lured into this later denial. The presentation of
these pieces of evidence proved that all accusations against me
were lies. Furthermore, there is the petition of Lebius with the
public prosecutor's office to lock me up in a lunatic asylum; his
petition to have me followed to America with a warrant for my
arrest; the numerous articles against me in his paper "Der Bund";
his pamphlets with the most horrible lies, which were circulated
in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France, England, North
and South America. In these, he even accused me of having
strangled my father-in-law! [a] This goes on like this up until
recent times. Finally, he informed against me for having made
insulting statements about an investigating judge, and the very
last thing was, about four weeks ago, a complaint with the public
prosecutor against me for incest, the punishment for which is, as
we all know, five years in prison. You see that the very most
extreme means are being used to "destroy" me! To endure this,
without losing the faith in God, the belief in the good of
mankind, and all joy of life and strength to live, is an act I
hardly think everybody would be capable of. I have endured it,
without allowing myself to be tempted to take the law into my own
hands, because I am incapable of doubting for a single moment in
God and his love, and because, in all of these more than hard
times, there had been a person by my side, whose brave, upward
striving soul had lifted me up, like on the wings of angels, above
all suffering, I was meant to be subjected to, this person is my
present wife. If someone has had the right to write books on the
topic of "The Savage Beast in a Woman" [b], I might just as well
feel obliged to publish, as a contrast to this, a book bearing the
title "Heaven in a Woman".

[a] This should probably read "grandfather-in-law", referring to
C.G. Pollmer, the grandfather of Karl May's first wife. At
any rate, Lebius's accusation is bogus.
[b] "Die Bestie im Weibe" by Carl Felix von Schlichtegroll
(1862-1946).


With such a woman by my side, who is a source everything which is
clean, noble, and eternal in a human being, everything can be
achieved in respect to the pains of life on earth, and everything
can be performed in respect to the work which is still ahead for
me, as far as it is humanly possible. I am no longer so terribly
alone. No longer, I have to tap into nothing but my own inner
self, but rather I have been joined by a delightfully plentiful
living soul, by whose influence everything inside of me which is
leading me towards the good goal is being doubled. Severely
ailing physically, I am of a fresh mind and in my soul at least
just as much full of confidence as in my youth. I am not foolish
enough to deny to myself that I am regarded as an outcast, cast
out from the church, society, and literature. One person will
start bashing at me, because he regards me as a Catholic or even
Jesuit in disguise; another one will reach for the cudgel,
because he thinks that I was still secretly a Protestant. Do you
think that those two would manage to pledge their allegiance
exclusively to whomever they happen to get the most thorough
thrashing from at any given time? That I am regarded as socially
dead, I do not care about. I do not have the slightest reason to
be eager to be a part of that society the acquaintance of which I
had been forced to make in my times of suffering. By the way, we
two old folks, my dear wife and I, are thus perfectly sufficient
to one another in respect to world within ourselves, that we would
not even be capable to yearn for the "society" of others. And
concerning me being cast out from literature, I can also live with
that. The path I am on has been taken by no one else before me;
I would therefore, even without the hatred directed against me, be
forced to be a lonely man. I am furthermore convinced that later,
once they will be properly acquainted with me and what I want, a
sizable number, perhaps even many, will leave the large crowd, in
order to join me. Old paths can lead to nothing more than old,
dead treasures. But whoever is searching for new, living
treasures, shall also take new, not old, paths. And my path is a
new one! The fate of my previous work will only be determined by
their worth or worthlessness, by nothing else. If they are any
good, they will stay, no matter whether they are presently being
praised or condemned. If they are no good, they will disappear,
no matter whether they are now rejected or not. And the most
important thing is, the person who has their worth or
worthlessness under his control is just me alone. No one of my
opponents, no matter how powerful and influential he may be in
literature, can influence this in even the slightest degree. This
sounds proud and boastful, but it is true. These works are
collections of sketches, are preliminary exercises, are
preparations for what is to come later. If those later things
will turn out well, everything by means of which I prepared myself
for it will be justified, no matter how or what is being thought
and written about it now.

Now, there is only one final remark in respect to the Muenchmeyer
novels left for me to make. One of my most unrelenting opponents
wrote I should by no means fool anybody into believing that a
trashy publisher could transform decent novels into indecent ones;
this would be a huge job, which nobody would be able to cope with.
This gentleman seems to be in the fortunate position to be
infinitely far removed from the live and activities of a trashy
publisher. First of all, if someone is able to spend the time and
effort to write a novel, then someone ought to be much more able
to spend the shorter time and lesser effort to change this novel!
Secondly, such a change requires by no means as much time and work
as my opponent seems to assume. The insertion of a few words is
perfectly sufficient to transform a "moral" sheet of printed paper
into an "immoral" one. Thirdly, there is more than enough
manpower for such changes available, and they have such an
astonishing routine in it that even an insider is amazed by the
the amount they can cope with. I have supplied evidence to this
and will supply even more. Walther, the frequently mentioned
factotum, sat at Muenchmeyers' every day, from early in the
morning until in the evening, only doing these kinds of work, and
then reading the proofs, which the author never got to see. The
evidence given first by Fischer, who had bought the Muenchmeyers'
business, and a few years later by his heirs, in a material manner
and in court, on these adaptations of my novels, is well known.
Concerning this, Muenchmeyer's nephew, who had been the head
pressman, had confirmed as a witness in the trial that Muenchmeyer
had personally altered entire chapters. Another witness had
testified under oath that Muenchmeyer had confessed to him that he
was making large, extensive changes to my novels, he would better
not tell me anything about. I suppose, I do not need to list here
even more examples, which are available to me, to make you
comprehend why I am absolutely demanding to be presented with my
original manuscripts, which surely would carry a so very different
weight as evidence than the fading memory of an old typesetter,
who, after thirty years, is expected to find his way around
through the mess of Muenchmeyer's letter-cases of that time.
Furthermore, these changes often stand out thus sharply from my
original text, that very numerous readers are assuring me that
they could say very precisely where the forgery begins and where
it ends.

Finally, I cannot neglect drawing your attention to a trick of my
opponents, and of Mr. Lebius in particular, which is being
employed to cause those of my readers who belong to the higher
classes to be outraged against me. They would write, for
instance, in an eye-catching place, that I was socialising with
the high society of Dresden and that I would quite generally make
the greatest effort to obtain the acquaintance of high-ranking
people. Not a single word, not a single letter of this is true.
When I am by myself, I feel most comfortable, and I also wish, in
this respect, for nothing else than to remain by myself. I would
like to see that person who would want to prove to me that I had
forced my company on him! In other places, it has been stated
emphatically, that I was a regular guest at "courts". This is
even more decisively untrue. If some aristocrat, who might belong
to some "court", would read my books and occasionally exchange a
few words with me, I would be the very last person to interpret
this as me being a "regular at court". Behind these statements,
which are pure fiction, there can only be the intention, to give
me, in those circles, the reputation of a indiscrete person or
even a liar, and to harm me even there, where I am absolutely not
to be found. - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In the end of this volume, I am returning to the beginning, to my
old, dear fable of "Sitara", I had started with. Not much time
will pass, before this fable will be known as the truth, and even
as the most tangible there is. It is the task of the present
century, which has just started, to enable our untrained eyes to
see the great, exalted symbolism of daily life and to bring us to
the bliss giving and uplifting realisation that there are higher
and more undeniable realities than those with which the workdays
and weekdays keep us busy. The sketches I drew and published
shall serve to prepare for this realisation. Therefore, they are
written in a symbolic manner and only have to be interpreted
allegorically, if they are to be understood. One would think that
it is quite amazing that this seems to be so hard for the common
reader. It should not be too much of a hard nut to crack, to
figure out something when reading a parable. When I refer to
Ardistan as the land of the ethically low and Jinnistan as the
land of the high, nobly thinking people, it could not require an
almost academic education to see what I mean when I describe a
journey from Ardistan to Jinnistan. The reader simply has to
transport himself in his imagination from his world of weekdays
into my world of Sundays, and this, I would think, is surely not
harder for him than to leave his workshop every Sunday, in order
to go to church at the sound of the bells.

Just as going to church this way frees a person from earthly
pressures, I want to free the inner part of my readers from the
external pressure by means of my tales. They shall hear bells
ringing. They shall sense and experience how a prisoner feels who
hears the locks clanging, because the day has come when he is
being released. It is is just as easy to understand my books and
to comprehend their contents, as it is easy to interpret this
imprisonment allegorically. 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. They are prisoners, but I want to
free them. And in seeking to free them, I am freeing myself,
because I am also not free, but rather imprisoned since a long,
long time ago. At that time, when I was living in prison, I was
free. There, I lived protected by the walls. There, everyone
stepping into my cell came with good and honest intentions.
There, nobody was allowed to touch me. There, nobody was allowed
to disturb the development of my inner self. No villain had me in
his power. Whatever I possessed and whatever I obtained was my
sure and inalienable property, until I - - was released, not for a
moment longer! For when I was released, I lost my freedom and my
human rights. What others who only know how to talk in
materialistic terms refer to as freedom has been a prison to me, a
labour camp, a penitentiary, in which I have been languishing by
now for thirty-six years, without finding a single person, aside
from my present wife, I would have been able to talk to, as I used
to talk to that unforgettable Catholic Bible teacher. I have not
lived and worked for myself, but only for others. Whatever I
obtained, I have been defrauded out of. Whatever savings I made,
have been stolen from me. Any given person was allowed to do with
me whatever he pleased, for everywhere he found a lawyer taking
his case. Any given person was allowed to suspect me, insult me,
bash away at me, for everywhere there was an article of law
protecting him. I had to conduct lawsuits for six years for the
sake of my property, and when I had won the trial, this did not
mean by a long shot that I would have received anything, and I was
put under preliminary investigation for perjury for twenty-two
months. By now, I am already conducting lawsuits for almost ten
years, and still, I have no result. The law does not want to have
it any other way. But in the meantime, I have been like a prison
inmate, who may be flogged, hurt, and tortured by everybody
however he may please, if he only succeeds in arming himself with
one of those articles of law, which are the ideals of all
"resolute" lawyers. Yes indeed, I am a captive, a prison inmate,
even now! A dozen lawsuits have detained me, so that by no means
I would be able to escape, and everybody who wanted money from me,
but did not get any, has behaved like a disciplinarian and has
been bashing away at me. I have wanted the best for all of those
I write for, their internal and external wellbeing, their present
and their future happiness. What have I been given for this good
intentions of mine? Scorn, mockery, and sarcasm! When I was a
prison inmate, I was no prisoner. And now that I am it no more, I
am it still. Why?

And you are laughing about me writing allegorically? Are not even
hell and purgatory allegories to us, who are the poorest of them
all? Where is a hell, if not in yourselves? And where is
purgatory, if not in ourselves? I am talking about this purgatory
when I am symbolically telling the story of my "spirits' furnace",
the terrible time of which I will have overcome today or tomorrow.
I hold no grudge against you, for I know it had to be this way.
It had been my task to bear every heavy load and to taste every
bitterness, which was to be borne and tasted here; I have to use
this in my work now. I am not embittered, because I know my
guilt. And what others had been forced to do to me, I do not hold
against them. I am just asking for that one thing: Finally,
finally, let me have the time to start this work!



Now that my life's hard work is all quite done,
Just leisure is what old age shall be bringing.
And what perhaps I will still look upon
With harp and psaltry I will still be singing.
I gave you all I got from God above,
Not for myself, among you I've been living.
And when you're giving hatred for my love,
I'll be content with these thanks you are giving.

Now that my life's hard pains are all quiet done,
To soothe my grief on God I am depending.
And what might still on me will come upon
He shall, in me, lead to a joyous ending.
The guilt you burdened me with heavily,
Was partially not my own, I must be saying.
The worldly thoughts on this which stir in me,
I'll gladly hide, except when I am praying.

Now that my life's hard test is all quiet done,
The Lord's own verdict I might soon be hearing,
Which way on me He might decide upon
It's my salvation, nothing I'd be fearing.
I cheer. From dungeons I will be set free;
At last, this prison's ties He'll sever.
Farewell! And he who still will misjudge me
Might just as well go on, hate me for ever!

The End.