German author of travel and adventure stories for young people, dealing with desert Arabs or with American Indians in the wild West, remarkable for the realistic detail that the author was able to achieve.

May, a weaver's son, was an elementary school teacher until arrested for petty theft. He later was twice arrested for fraud and spent several years in prison, where he is said to have read voraciously. After his release in 1874 May wrote short stories that were serialized in various periodicals. His popularity soared upon the appearance of his short-story collections and novels in the early 1890s.

Some of the best known of his more than 60 works are Der Schatz im Silbersee (1894; “The Treasure in the Silver Lake”), Durch die Wüste (1892; In the Desert), Winnetou, 3 vol. (1893; Eng. trans., 1977); Ardistan und Dschinnistan (1909; Ardistan and Djinnistan), and the autobiography Mein Leben und Streben (1910; “My Life and Struggle”). In his memory were established a publishing house, the Karl May Verlag in Bamberg, Ger. (originally in Radebeul), and the Karl May Museum in Bamberg, containing North American Indian collections.