I'm not suggesting, and I don't think anyone would think of using May's books as research tools, but for light reading why not? And important in some research area in terms of how other cultures view(ed) the Native Americans. There are thousands of German readers whose only information on the American west came from May, it's all incorrect, but it informs their culture, the Karl May Museum, the re-enactments, the dozens of films, and now the very popular satire on the German Karl May film, 'the Shoes of Minatou' which was one of the biggest grossing, most popular films in Germany in 2001. There are kernels of truth in the biggest tall tale, and the only concern for American's is the bad translation that has been done over the years. A couple of people have recently begon re-translating, one of them going back to the orignal serialized editions of May's Desert series, another working from many editions and copywriting his own English abridged and edited 'version' of the first book of 'Winnetou'. I would like to see a good, thorough translation of all of May's work in to English so the rest of the world can decide for themselves about the spirit motivating the stories. They are no worse than Talbot Mundy, or Sax Rohmer, or the like, and in many instances better, for the personal preferences of May are distinctly pacifist, anti-Colonial, anti-materialist (to a degree at least), multi-cultural, anti-racist, anti-Fascist, pro-freedom, pro-learning, etc.