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Karl May Reading Order
To answer the question about the order in which Karl May’s novels are meant to be read...
It can be a simple answer, or a very complicated one. I have referred to Karl May's impossible time-line in my research, the first Karl May biography in English, 'Savage To Saint'. Please consult that work.
Having said that: 'Trilogies' must definitely be read in sequence - 1 - 2 - 3 - (Winnetou Trilogy), with the Old Surehand trilogy being an odd one out, as the middle book (#2 of pre-1912), is no longer included to create a trilogy as it contains a succession of completely unrelated stories - the introduction to my translation of the Old Surehand saga refers. Therefore, my English translation of Old Surehand should be read - 1 - 2 -.
The 'Adventure Novels' (boys' stories) consist of 8 books he wrote in third person (all 'Travel Fiction Novels' are written in first person). They can be read as standalones, but some will refer back to 'earlier' adventures, and some people in them also 'age', therefore, they would best be read in sequence - that being in the order in which they were written, with 'The Son of the Bearhunter' being the first, then 'Phantom of Llano Estacado', 'The Treasure in Silver-Lake', 'The Inca's Legacy' (which is an adventure of South America, and does not contain Winnetou), 'The Oil Baron', and 'Black Mustang'.
You'll note that these titles do not amount to 8, because some of the boys' stories are 'Orient' stories, of which I have translated none.
Any other attempt at fitting his novels into any sort of chronology has failed for over 100 years; that is because all of them are written as 'once upon a time'. The only exception is Winnetou's fictional death in 1874. That's when Winnetou stories basically stop - in his fictional world - having said that: he did not write any Winnetou stories until well after that (non-fictional) date. You'll find more research about Karl May's impossible chronology in the biography (Savage To Saint), and also in the 100-page research in the introductory part of the printed version of 'The Treasure in Silver-Lake' - the ebook version does not contain the research part.
Therefore - any novel that does not belong to a 'series' can be read as a standalone. Some novels he wrote 'later' in his life, included events that pre-date novels he wrote 'earlier'; he included factual events, that is factual geographical, cultural, political, and historical events, in a loose manner, contracting events that may have taken place decades apart in reality, into a one-year adventure in his fictional tale.
The double novel From the Rio Dela Plata to the
Cordilleras, a South America novel is one such example (no Winnetou), and his
first person persona in this double novel was 'Carlos', not Old Shatterhand of his Wild West stories, or
Kara Ben Nemsi of his Oriental tales.
I hope this sheds a bit of light on Karl May's chronology; aficionados have been attempting to put his novels into a 'proper' chronological order (by fictional progression), but have had to concede defeat each time.