ABSTRACT
Friedrich Spielhagen who knew something of Charles Sealsfield and Friedrich Gerstacker, had many other American interests and connections. His first book publications were translations of an American travel book about the Nile in 1856, of Emerson's just-published English Traits in 1857, and of American poems in 1859. Like Spielhagen, Wilhelm Raabe had substantial, though perhaps less intense, American interests. References to American events can be found and in his diary. Raabe might have learned from the novel of Gerstacker, Gold!, which had appeared five years before, or from his travel account even earlier, that there was gold in California and if one worked very hard and were fortunate, one might find enough to meet one's expenses while panning for it; any excess would be skimmed off by gamblers and crooks. Raabe is supposed to have said that the mark of a true Dichter is to be able to describe in a true-to-life manner what one has not seen or experienced.
