# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/karl-may
# Generated: 2026-09-02T06:04:20.316Z

schema: https://schema.org/Person
url: "https://fame.am/person/karl-may"
name: "Karl May"
slug: "karl-may"
description: "A German novelist who never saw the American West but convinced millions he'd lived it — writing first-person frontier adventures from a Saxony desk and, for years, insisting the tales were his own."
tagline: "German author (1842–1912)"
image: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Karl_May_edit.jpg"
gender: "male"
country:
  name: "Germany"
  isoCode: "DE"
category:
  name: "Writers"
  slug: "writers"
profileType:
  name: "Writer / Author"
  slug: "writer"
birthDate: "1842-02-25"
deathDate: "1912-03-30"
livingStatus: "DECEASED"
scores:
  popularity:           61.45
  momentum:             12.03706318390399
  historical:           24.827636
  currentAttention:     30.76923076923077
  sourceConfidence:     65
  profileCompleteness:  75
  trendDirection:       "STABLE"
ranks:
  global:   null
  country:  null
  category: null
tags:
  - name: "Writers"
    slug: "writers"
  - name: "Writer / Author"
    slug: "writer-author"
  - name: "Fiction"
    slug: "fiction"
  - name: "Screenwriting"
    slug: "screenwriting"
  - name: "Classical"
    slug: "classical"
  - name: "Literature"
    slug: "literature"
  - name: "19th Century"
    slug: "19th-century"
platforms:
  - platform:  "IMDB"
    url:       "https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0562015/"
    handle:    "nm0562015"
sources:
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    title: "Wikipedia"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q22714"
    title: "Wikidata"
    type:  "WIKIDATA"
  - url: "https://pantheon.world/profile/person/Karl%20May"
    title: "Pantheon 2.0"
    type:  "DATABASE"
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    title: "Karl May"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "كارل ماي"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "كارل ماى"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://azb.wikipedia.org/wiki/%DA%A9%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%84_%D9%85%D8%A7%DB%8C_(%D9%86%D9%88%DB%8C%D8%B3%D9%86%D8%AF%D9%87)"
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    title: "Karl May"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Karl May"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Karl May"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karel_May"
    title: "Karel May"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_May"
    title: "Karl May"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_May"
    title: "Karl May"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_May"
    title: "Karl May"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://eu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_May"
    title: "Karl May"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%DA%A9%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%84_%D9%85%D8%A7%DB%8C_(%D9%86%D9%88%DB%8C%D8%B3%D9%86%D8%AF%D9%87)"
    title: "کارل مای (نویسنده)"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_May"
    title: "Karl May"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://frp.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_May"
    title: "Karl May"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_May"
    title: "Karl May"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://fy.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_May"
    title: "Karl May"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A7%D7%A8%D7%9C_%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%99"
    title: "קרל מאי"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_May"
    title: "Karl May"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_May"
    title: "Karl May"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://de.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_May"
    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
  - url: "https://it.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_May"
    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
  - url: "https://pl.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karol_May"
    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
  - url: "https://sl.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_May"
    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
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    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
  - url: "https://musicbrainz.org/artist/9b72186d-d6cc-4a64-b769-24fdc4ac2e21"
    title: "MusicBrainz"
    type:  "DATABASE"

# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  Karl Friedrich May was born 25 February 1842 in Germany and spent his career spinning vivid first-person narratives set in the American Old West, the Ottoman Empire, Latin America, and beyond — places he largely never visited. He claimed to be Old Shatterhand in the West and Kara Ben Nemsi in the East, even posing in costume to sustain the fiction. The impersonation held for years, and the books moved regardless: about 200 million copies sold worldwide, making him one of Germany's best-selling authors of all time. A wave of film adaptations in the 1960s carried the mythology further. He died 30 March 1912, the adventure intact on every page, the geography all in his head.