Let me furthermore name the fable of "Marah Durimeh", the soul of mankind, the fable of "Shakara", that noble soul of a woman, sent by God, this woman whom I have described with the features of my present wife. And then there are the fables of the "redeemed devil", the "immured God", the "petrified prayer", the "calcified souls", the "Beit-Ullah's columns of roses", the "jump into the past", the "jemma of the living and the dead", the "battle at the Jebel Allah", the "Lake Mahalama", the "mountain of the royal tombs", the "mir of Jinnistan", the "mir of Ardistan", the "city of the deceased", the "Jebel Muchallis", the "watershed of El Hadd", and many, many more. Considering these mentally and spiritually so significant, yes even hard, contents of my novels, it would be incomprehensible how they could be described as "literature for young people" and I as an "author for young people", if we would not know that all who commit this mistake have either not understood them or have not read them at all. Even "Winnetou", which seems to be so easy to read, requires, when it approaches its end in the fourth volume, a reflection and understanding, which would surely be asking too much from a seventh-grader or a teenaged girl! When some people nevertheless continue using these expressions "literature for young people" and "author for young people", I have to describe this as an intentional misrepresentation, which is beneath every decent and serious critic.
But once the admission is made, honestly and according to the truth, that my "traveller's tales" have not been written for the young generation, the foundation of the nowadays commonplace supposition that they were harmful has been removed. Let them only be read by those to whom they are not harmful; I would not force anybody else to do so! What is the reason and purpose of all these allegations, I am now confronted with in hundreds of newspapers? As soon as one takes a closer look at these allegations, they lose all of their worth. I used to be praised; now, I am disapproved of. This has become the current fashion and will, like every fashion, turn into its opposite again. But this fashion is not just a fashion, but a scheme! Even if now my books were no longer read by anybody, this could not worry me in the least, for I know that this scheme will be found out very soon, resulting in the appropriate reaction. Moreover, if had fed my readers with nothing but entertainment, I would have to disappear from the scene, never to reappear again, and would be understanding enough, without having to be told so, to submit to this fate. But during my "life and my efforts" I have committed mistakes, which were just too many and just too severe, for me to be allowed to perish and to disappear forever just like that. I have to undo the damage! Whatever a mortal has sinned, he has to repent and atone for, and blessed is he who is granted an opportunity by heaven not to take his guilt with him beyond death, but to pay already for it here. I want to do this; I may do this, and I will do this! Moreover, I boldly state: I have already done this! I have already given to the law of man everything it had a right to demand from me a long time ago; I do not owe it anything any more! And what extends beyond those articles of the law created by man, I will settle by dedicating all that I am still going to write to this great creditor, who knows very well, whether I owe more than those others who think themselves better than May.
I am convinced that my sins, as far as I am to blame for them, are only in the area of my personal life, but not in my literature; in the latter area, I not conscious of any misdeeds. What I have achieved through my "traveller's tales", will be revealed only after my death by the thousands of letters I have received, but even then, only my biographer will get to see them; they will not be published. These works used to be praised and adored, until one day, a certain unscrupulous person had nothing better to do than to state in public that I had also written other things aside from them, but that those were "abysmally" indecent. Even if this had been true, it could not have changed the "traveller's tales", neither their inner contents nor their external form. Nevertheless, from this day on, they were first regarded with suspicion, then they were slandered more and more, and finally they were even declared to be perfectly harmful and were expelled from the libraries, where they used to be welcomed before. Why? Had they changed? No! Had the bibliographical customs, the laws of morality changed? No! Had the needs of the readers become different? This is not it either! But what other reason was there? This was simply because of this circle of people from the realm of trashy literature and colportage, who were determined to, as they themselves used to put it, "destroy me". But is it humanly possible that such a circle of people could gain such an extensive and incomprehensible influence on the world literature and its critics? Unfortunately yes! I will have to write about this in the next chapter. This mob does not even stop at casting their own sins and literary crimes upon me and at presenting themselves as spotless! There are so-called critics which have been staining my reputation for as long as ten years with all kinds of slander on account of the novels I wrote for Münchmeyer, but have not blamed the publisher a single time in even the slightest extent. I call this a disgrace!
It has been said that our publishers of trashy literature annually make fifty million marks from the German people. This is terrible, though this estimation is still far too low. A single trashy novel which is a so-called hit can cost the people more than five or six million, and there are catalogues in which, for instance, just the single company Münchmeyer is offering fifty-eight -- read it and be amazed -- fifty-eight of these novels at the same time! You can figure it out; do the multiplications! What a loss! What an immense amount of poison and mischief! How many hundreds, or even thousands, of people are busy creating and distributing this poison! And now, open your newspapers, magazines, and books to see who is held responsible for all this, who is publicly accused, who is despised, jeered at, and slandered! Karl May, Karl May, again and again Karl May, and only and only Karl May! Where can ever another name be seen and read than just this one? Whatever have I done to be counted among the trash at all? Where are those two thousand real trashy authors, who restlessly make sure, year after year, that in Germany and in German-speaking Austria there will never be a shortage of trash? In court, in "scientific" writings, in the meetings of commissions, in public speeches by writers, editors, teachers, ministers of the church, professors, artists, psychiatrists, at all fitting and unfitting occasions where the "moral degradation of the youth" is being discussed, Karl May is mentioned again and again! He is to blame, only he! He is the archetype of those who poison the youth! He is the father of all those ruthless characters like Captain Thürmer, Nick Carter, and Buffalo Bill! My God, do these gentlemen really not know what they are doing? What a sin they are committing? How they are talked about among those who know better? Let them name just a single case where it has been really proven in court, that someone has been corrupted by one of my books! Hundreds of trashy stories of the most morally corrupting kind have been read by such a boy, and also one volume or several volumes by Karl May. This one is known, but not the others; therefore, he must be the one to be singled out and to named as the perpetrator! Week after week, newspaper offices are sending me fifty, sixty, or seventy newspaper clips, where I am being executed instead of all those German trashy authors and trashy publishers. This is inhumanly cruel! They pile up their disgrace all over me, but tip their hats to those who are really guilty. Why are their names never mentioned? Why are these not nailed to the cross? There are hundreds of publishers and writers who have been punished for distributing indecent material. And even larger is the number of those who, with the full intent, publish filth for the youth, only to make money. Why are their names not given? Why are their crimes against the youth and the people ignored to the point of becoming guilty of being an accomplice? Why are they not attacked, but only me, the scapegoat for the entire mob of literature? The answer is very simple: It is a scheme, nothing but a scheme! And it can be nothing but a scheme, because no single person could possibly commit so many wrongdoings as I am charged with! I will have to shed some light on this with more details in the next chapter.
The accusations, which are being raised against me, have always been nothing but unsubstantiated statements. Not for a single one of them, a real proof has been given. On account of these accusations, I asked countless readers of my books, in letters and in personal conversations, whether they would be able to name one of my traveller's tales or one passage from them, which might be described as having a harmful effect. No one has been able to name just a single line, to which this would apply. Even my most unrelenting opponent, the newspaper called "Kölnische Volkszeitung", has been compelled to give me the following attestation: "Everything which is offensive to the youth has been carefully avoided, though May's works are not at all only targeted at them; many thousands of adults have already obtained a rich measure of recreation and information from these colourful images!" This attestation alone proves the current "scheme", because my books have remained entirely unchanged since that time, and the same gentleman who had attested this in public, was the first who has fallen victim to this scheme and has since then never been able to rise from this fall again.
To refute the allegations which are being raised against me, I feel compelled to risk committing an indiscretion by publishing the following letter, an indiscretion which this gentlemen, whom I esteem highly and honestly, will probably forgive. Doctor Peter Rosegger wrote to me on July the 2nd of this year from Krieglach.
"Dear Sir!
"The note I published in the Heimgarten is based on the judicial hearing in Charlottenburg, and as soon as, once again, a court will decide in your favour, I will, with great pleasure, take note of this.
"As a colleague, your case does concern me personally, and being your colleague, I also would like to take the liberty to give you my opinion on what would be the best manner for you to refute these allegations.
"In your place, I would ignore all the polemics which do not refer to the accusations in a factual manner. What you have confessed yourself from the time of your youth, should thereby be also taken care of, and hardly any person with a legal mind would still hold this against you, unless the court does so. That your travel accounts are not based on personal experiences, that they are just stories told in the first person, this also cannot be regarded as an objectionable act on your part by any man of literature. Thus, the only thing that is left is to finally come forward with the factual proof that those frequently mentioned obscene passages were not written by you, but edited in by the publisher. As far the plagiarisms are concerned, you have been accused of, experts ought to be able to decide to which extent these might be plagiarisms or to which extent they are only rewritten subject matters and thoughts. Based on the first editions, comparing them with the new editions, it ought to be possible to determine, whether the manner, the train of thought, and the style of the newly added sentences organically fit with your style and the book or not. I think, you should now concentrate all of your defence to such realities and push incessantly for these things to be finally decided in court. All other articles written by your friends, who are just talking in general about your works' outstanding qualities, which are by no means disputed, could not possibly have any special effect on this embarrassing affair as such.