Meadow robbers

Friedrich Gerstacker (1818-1872) was a German writer, traveler, and one of the most popular authors of adventure literature in the 19th century. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, his books enjoyed the same success as the works of Gustav Aimard, Thomas Mayne Reid, and Fenimore Cooper. However, unlike many of his contemporaries, Gerstacker did not seek to simply exoticize distant lands, but described what he saw, heard, and experienced with lively humor and keen observation. His stories about life on the American frontier are so authentic that it is sometimes difficult to believe that their author is not an American, but a German. This edition presents his novel The Meadow Robbers, which stands out among classic adventure stories for its intonations rare for the genre. The book contains irony, reminiscent of American folklore, and a deep understanding of the realities of the Wild West. Gerstacker masterfully destroys stereotypes: the world of his heroes is not divided into "e;black"e; and "e;white"e;. Bandit horse thieves, their implacable opponents the regulators (self-appointed guardians of order, resorting to lynching), as well as farmers forced to survive in the harsh conditions of the frontier they all live by their own laws, and the line between crime and justice turns out to be much more shaky than is commonly believed.