Charles Sealsfield

Charles Sealsfield was the pseudonym of Austrian-American journalist Karl Anton Postl (3 March 1793 – 26 May 1864), an advocate for a German democracy.

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.

Meanwhile, Postl had returned to the United States, where he published his first novel, also in English, Tokeah, or the White Rose (1828; translated in German by Gustav Höcker).

Sealsfield occupies an important position in the development of the German historical novel at a period when the influence of the Scottish author, Sir Walter Scott, was beginning to wane.

Postl endeavoured to widen the scope of historical fiction, to describe great national and political movements, without forfeiting the sympathy of his readers for the individual characters of the story.

The Boston Daily Advertiser and other newspapers commenced a search for the true identity of "Seatsfield," but many believed the whole story to be a hoax.