"German Three Musketeers??" Topic

Are there any German stories equivalent or similar to the Three Musketeers?

Equivalent or similar in what way? Set in 17th century Europe?

Karl May was a prolific German writer of the late 19th/early 20h century whose adventure novels became very popular among German speakers and others. Little of his work has been translated into English, perhaps because much of his most popular fiction was set in an imagined American west that would seem inauthentic to most American readers.

You might track down some May novels, Winnetou the Apache Knight and The Oil Prince have been translated and are available in paperback, that I know of. Or read May in the original, if you can.

IIRC there are some (legal) English translations of Mays books avaible online.

Propably the closest is Splimismuss.

It should be "Der abenteuerliche Simplicissimus Teutsch" by H.J.C. v. Grimmelshausen :-))).

It is a mixture of fiction and autobiography and covers the time of the TYW.

Ulenspiegel

Simlicissimus is far less entertaining, but holds the advantage that it is a contemporary tale, not one written two hundred years after. This period never had the glory for Germany that it had for France, and a lot more gore, so it never became the background of a literate hero of the Three Musketeer-fame.

To bad that the illustrated German edition is not available in English. Really what gives. Neither the Capitan Alatriste books carried the moody illustrations into English, neither Simplicissimus (whose name I mangled). Is their some "hatred" for illustrations in U.S publishing?

Not at all. But it does explain why it never really became popular in the US: no pictures. Look at the success Playboy has had, lot's of pictures.

Rich

I mean illustrated books. Not Playboy etc:)

I work in a library and I can tell you that illustrated books are almost always assumed to be for children.

This causes problems all the time, especially with novels that have been retold for children and are now known primarily as children's stories. Gulliver's Travels and Don Quixote are good examples here, we have an unabridged, illustrated version of each and they both keep getting shelved in the junior section.

On a related note, it has taken me most of the last 20 years to convince my co-workers that a lot of graphic novels are not for children (From Hell usually does the job nicely).

The problem in the English speaking west is that we seem to place more emphasis presentation rather than content when deciding what's for children and what isn't. You should have seen the storm of protest when Ren and Stimpy was first aired on Australian TV – on Saturday morning along with the kids cartoons!

Look for "The adventures of Freiherr von der Trenck" or "von der Trenck" from Bruno Frank or from Trenk himself- it plays during the reign of frederick the great, trenck is a friend of frederick, but his uncle is a famous pandur in austria, so he was arrested as a spion and so on. Many adventures best as a ( german ) tv-production from 1972 ( imdb.com/title/tt0162819 )