Understanding Charles Sealsfield, Understanding America

«Schuchalter’s comprehensive study of the enigmatic author Charles Sealsfield is a welcome contribution to German-American studies. He convincingly explains the development of Sealsfield’s political philosophy: After having fled Europe, the former Catholic priest discovered liberalism and saw its promises fulfilled in the New World before getting disgruntled with actual developments in the USA since the late 1830s.»

(Wynfrid Kriegleder, Professor of Modern German Literature, University of Vienna)

This work explores the literary phenomenon of Charles Sealsfield, known throughout much of his career as «the Great Unknown» and for a brief time as «Seatsfield, the Greatest American Author.» Sealsfield, a runaway Moravian monk, living in permanent disguise, reinvented himself as an American author and the self-proclaimed founder of a new novel form. Despite publishing works both in English and in German, he has been relegated to a marginalized, if not forgotten, place in the American canon and a constricted place in the German canon. This study examines his fiction and travel books, as well as his correspondence, and strives for a reassessment of his achievement in both canons.