1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sealsfield, Charles

SEALSFIELD, CHARLES, the pseudonym of (1793-1864), German novelist, who was born on the 3rd of March 1793 at Poppitz near Znaim in Moravia. His schooling completed, he entered the Kreuzherrenorden in Prague, where he became a priest, but in the autumn of 1822 he fled to America, 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), which was followed by an outspoken criticism of Austria, written in English (Austria as it is, 1828) and published anonymously in London. Meanwhile he had returned to America, where he published his first novel, also in English, Tokeah, or the White Rose (1828). He now turned journalist, first in New York and subsequently in Paris and London, as correspondent for various journals. In 1832 he settled in Switzerland, and in 1860 purchased a small estate near Solothurn. Here he died on the 26th of May 1864. His will first revealed the fact that he was the former monk, Postl.