The work of Karl May is a cultural phenomenon that reflects many aspects of German civilization in the late nineteenth century--and beyond: his works continue to attract mass audiences and scholars alike. In terms of copies sold, May is easily the most successful German author of all time; his work sustains its own publishing house, the Karl-May-Verlag, dedicated to bringing out new editions of his writings and to the marketing of May-related merchandise such as games, calendars, coloring books, and T-shirts. By the time of May's death in 1912 his publisher Fehsenfeld alone had sold a million and a half volumes of his Gesammelte Reiseromane (Collected Travel Novels, 1892-1904), a spectacular success by the standards of the time. By 1945 sales of the collected works had risen to nine million volumes, all in handsome hardcover editions, and by 1986 the Karl-May-Verlag had produced about seventy million volumes of May's works. Since...