Balduin Möllhausen was the most prolific and most widely read German exponent of the popular genre of travel and adventure literature, especially the Amerikaroman (transatlantic novel) in the second half of the nineteenth century. This genre was inspired by James Fenimore Cooper, whose novels were an immediate success when they appeared on the European literary scene in the 1820s. In Germany it reached its apotheosis with the fanciful tales of Karl May at the turn of the century. Unlike May, Möllhausen and earlier, more realistic practitioners of the genre, such as Charles Sealsfield (pseudonym of Karl Postl), Friedrich Armand Strubberg, and Friedrich Gerstäcker, had firsthand experience of America and did much to popularize its image in Germany. The Amerikaroman fulfilled both escapist desires and a need for information, reflecting the manifold ties German readers of all classes had to the New World...