Charles Sealsfield

Charles Sealsfield was the pseudonym of Austrian-American novelist and journalist Carolus Magnus Postl (3 March 1793 – 26 May 1864), an advocate for a German democracy. He lived in the United States from 1822 to 1826, and then again in 1828/1829. During a final stay from 1853 to 1858 he became a U.S. citizen. Sealsfield is best known for his German-language Romantic novels with American backgrounds, his travelogues, and for not revealing his identity until after his death, in his will. He returned to Europe about 1829, living in Paris and London before settling in Switzerland in 1832, where he resided for most of the rest of his life.

Biography

Carl Magnus Postl was born in Popice (Poppitz in German, now part of Znojmo) in Moravia, then part of the Habsburg Empire. His schooling completed, he entered the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star in Prague, where he became a priest. In the autumn of 1822, apparently fleeing the repressive government of Prince Klemens von Metternich (so-called Vormärz regime), he fled to the United States, 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). Next he published an outspoken criticism of Austria, first in German, then adapted by Postl into English (Austria as it is, or, sketches of continental courts, by an eye-witness, 1828.) It was published anonymously in London; this book offended the Austrian authorities. The author was a wanted man in that country, but his identity remained unknown.