Charles Sealsfield is not only one of the earliest and most important German/Austrian American writers but also an early western author. Although largely unknown to twentieth-century American readers, his novels are a part of the western tradition in American literature, especially with regard to the "Texas novel." The complexity of his fiction, largely unnoticed for more than a century after his death, has received renewed appreciation from critics since the 1970s. There has been a long-standing scholarly fascination in Sealsfield's biography, which remains a subject of speculation and dispute.

Sealsfield was born as Carl Postl on 3 March 1793 in Poppitz (then part of the Austrian Empire, today Popice, Czech Republic) in rural Southern Moravia. His early familiarity with life in the country may have contributed to his appreciation of landscapes and his skillful use of natural western scenery in his later novels. He was the eldest of eleven...