CHARLES

See also:

• CHARLES SEALSFIELD

SEALSFIELD  , the pseudonym of KARL ANTON POSTL (1793-1864), German novelist, who was born on the 3rd of March 1793 at Poppitz near Znaim in Moravia . His schooling completed, he entered the Kreuzherrenorden in Prague, where he became a priest, but in the autumn of 1822 he fled to America, where he assumed the name of Charles Sealsfield . In 1826 he returned to Germany and published a book on America (Die Vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika), which was followed by an outspoken criticism of Austria, written in English (Austria as it is, 1828) and published anonymously in London . Meanwhile he had returned to America, where he published his first novel, also in English, Tokeah, or the White Rose (1828) . He now turned journalist, first in New York and subsequently in Paris and London, as correspondent for various journals . In 1832 he settled in Switzerland, and in 186o purchased a small estate near Solothurn . Here he died on the 26th of May 1864 . His will first revealed the fact that he was the former monk, Postl . It is as a German novelist that he is best known . His Tokeah appeared in German under the title Der Legitime and die Republikaner (1838), and was followed by Der Virey and die Arislokraten (1835) . Lebensbilder aus beiden Hemisphdren (1835-1837), Sturm-, Land- and Seebilder (1838), Das Kajiitenbuch, oder . Nationale Charakteristiken (1842) .

Sealsfield occupies an important position in the development of the German

historical novel at a period when Scott's influence was beginning to wane . He endeavoured to widen the scope of historical fiction, to describe great national and political movements, without forfeiting the sympathy of his readers for the individual characters of the story . Sealsfield's Gesammelte Werke appeared in 18 vols . (1843–1846) ; his chief novels are also to be obtained in modern reprints . See Kertbeny, Erinnerungen an Sealsfield (1864); L . Schmolle, Charles Sealsfield (1875); L . Hamburger, Sealsfield-Postl, bisher unvero.$entlichte Briefe (1879); A . B . Faust, Charles Sealsfield, der Dwhter beider Hemisphdren (1896) .