Friedrich Gerstäcker

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Friedrich Gerstäcker (May 10, 1816, Hamburg - May 31, 1872, Braunschweig) was a German traveller and novelist.

Aged just under 21 he went to the USA to settle there. Six adventurous years later, during which he travelled through North America from Canada to Texas, from Arkansas to Louisiana, he returned to Germany.

Here he put his diaries to use, at first making a living from translations, and then publishing his own experiences: "Streif- und Jagdzüge durch die Vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika" (written on the basis of his diary), "Die Regulatoren in Arkansas" and "Die Flußpiraten des Mississippi" were the start of a successful writing career. In the years following, Gerstäcker travelled through South America, experienced the California gold rush, crossed the South Pacific on a whaler, wandered through Australia and experienced the gold rush there, went to Java, back to South America, Africa, again to North and Central America. Preparing a journey to India, China and Japan, he suffered a fatal cerebral haemorrhage on May 31, 1872.

The widely travelled adventurer left behind an oeuvre of 44 volumes, which he edited himself for his Jena publisher H. Costenoble. His stories and novels inspired numerous imitators: Karl May took profit from him and used landscape descriptions as well as subjects and characters. Even Broadway and Hollywood borrowed from his work: the plot of the musical Brigadoon (1954) was adapted from Gerstäcker's short story Germelshausen.[1]

The Friedrich-Gerstäcker-Gesellschaft e.V. founded in 1978 in Braunschweig offers more information about Gerstäcker and runs a museum about his work.

[edit] Books

Streif- und Jagdzüge durch die Vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika (Rambling and Hunting in the United States of North America), 1844
Die Regulatoren in Arkansas (The Arkansas Regulators), 1845
Die Flußpiraten des Mississippi (Mississippi River Pirates)