Editing Karl May (section)

=== Number of copies and translations ===
According to an encyclopedia dedicated to May, he is the "most read writer of the German tongue". The total number of copies published is about 200 million, half of them in German.<ref name=PetzelWehnertLexikon>Petzel M. and Wehnert J. ''Das neue Lexikon rund um Karl May.'' Lexikon Imprint Verlag, Berlin 2002.</ref>

May's first translated work is considered to have been the first half of the ''Orient Cycle'' into a French [[Daily newspaper|daily]] in 1881.<ref name=ThuenaUebersetzungen>von Thüna U. ''Übersetzungen'' in Ueding G.''Karl-May-Handbuch'' Königshausen & Neumann, 2001 pp. 519–522. {{ISBN|9783826018138}}.</ref> Recently, it was discovered, and confirmed by Hans Dieter Steinmet ([[Karl May Museum]]) that [[Croat]]ian writer [[Nikola Tordinac]] published a translation of May's novel ''Tree carde monte'' in the magazine Sriemski Hrvat in 1880.<ref name=glas>[http://www.glas-slavonije.hr/320453/4/Glas-Slavonije-otkrio-je-prvi-Tordincev-prijevod-Karla-Maya-u-svijetu Glas Slavonije otkrio je prvi, Tordinčev prijevod Karla Maya u svijetu!] ''[[Glas Slavonije]]'', 20 December 2016. Access date 8 June 2020.</ref> Tordinac's translation became a part of the permanent exhibition of the Karl May Museum in 2017.<ref name=glas/> Since that time, May's work has been translated into more than 30 languages, including [[Latin]] and [[Esperanto]]. In the 1960s, [[UNESCO]] indicated that May was the most frequently translated German writer.<ref name=PetzelWehnertLexikon/> His most popular translations are in [[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian]], [[Czech language|Czech]], [[Hungary|Hungarian]] and Dutch.<ref name=ThuenaUebersetzungen/> Seabury Press, New York, began publishing English translations by Michael Shaw in 1977.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Cook|first=Colleen|date=1982|title=Germany's Wild West Author: A Researcher's Guide to Karl May|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/1429849|journal=German Studies Review|volume=5|issue=1|pages=67–86|doi=10.2307/1429849|jstor=1429849|issn=0149-7952}}</ref> In 2001, Nemsi Books Publishing Company, [[Pierpont, South Dakota]], was one of the first English publishing houses to produce the unabridged translations of May's ''oeuvre''. Since the closing of Nemsi Books in 2023, some of the English translations by Juergen Nett have been made available on Amazon through KDP.