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 Münchmeyer. He instantly tackled those first ones, and they sold excellently. We were both convinced that we would not be less successful with the Münchmeyer 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 Münchmeyer stuff right now. It was also because of this that the unexpected news that Münchmeyer 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 Münchmeyer 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 Münchmeyers 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. Münchmeyer 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. Münchmeyer 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. Münchmeyer 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. Münchmeyer. This preference of hers for Münchmeyer 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. Münchmeyer 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 Münchmeyer 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 Münchmeyer 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 Münchmeyer, 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 "Verkäufer" <seller> instead of "Käufer" <buyer>. This must be a misprint.
This friend's name was Richard Plöhn, and he was the owner of the "Sächsische Verbandstoffabrik" <Saxonian factory for bandaging 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 Plöhn simply could not bring himself to do. He assured me that this would be impossible for him. Mrs. Plöhn 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. Plöhn 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. Plöhn. 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.