B. Traven (dates unknown, possibly 1890-1969) was the
pen nameA pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
of an enigmatic twentieth century
novelA novel is a long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
ist whose most famous work is the novel
The Treasure of the Sierra MadreThe Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a 1927 novel by the mysterious German-English bilingual author B. Traven, in which two penurious Americans of the 1920s join with an old-timer, in Mexico, to prospect for gold...
,
filmedThe Treasure of the Sierra Madre is John Huston's American feature film adaptation of B. Traven's novel of the same name, in which two penurious Americans during 1920s in Mexico join with an old-timer to prospect for gold. The old-timer accurately predicts trouble, but is willing to go anyway...
by
John HustonJohn Marcellus Huston was an American filmmaker, screenwriter and actor. He was known for directing the films The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge The Misfits , The Man Who Would Be...
in
1948The year 1947 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*May 22 - Great Expectations is premiered in New York.*November 24 : The United States House of Representatives of the 80th Congress voted 346 to 17 to approve citations for contempt of Congress against the "Hollywood Ten."*November 25...
. The name B. Traven appeared as author of many other novels, including
The Death ShipThe Death Ship is a novel by the pseudonymous author known as B. Traven. Originally published in German in 1926, and in English in 1934, it was Traven's first major success and is still the author's second-best-known work after The Treasure of the Sierra Madre...
and the epic Jungle Novel series, which is a description of government corruption and an Indian uprising set at the birth of the
Mexican RevolutionThe Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle that started in 1910 with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz. The Revolution was characterized by several socialist, liberal, anarchist, populist, and agrarianist movements.Over time the Revolution...
. His writing portrays a bleak and violent world and is notable for anti-capitalist and pro-
anarchistAnarchism is a political philosophy encompassing theories and attitudes which consider the state, as compulsory government, to be unnecessary, harmful, and/or undesirable, and favors the absence of the state ....
sympathies.
While his identity has been the subject of much speculation, the current consensus is that the writer who used the name B. Traven was a man known for different periods of his life as Ret Marut (1907-1924), Traven Torsvan (1925-1951) and Hal Croves (1952-1969). No one theory of his origins has, however, received universal acceptance; one theory is that he was born in Chicago in 1890, name unknown. Another is that he was born in 1882 a member of the German working-class called Herman Albert Otto Maximilian Feige, this being a name given by Ret Marut in 1923 which has been confirmed as that of a real individual whose biography accords with the known facts of B. Traven's life.
General
Work published under the name B. Traven started to appear in print in February 1925 when the first part of
The Cotton Pickers appeared in serial form in the German newspaper
VorwärtsVorwärts was the central organ of the Social Democratic Party of Germany published daily in Berlin from 1891 to 1933 by decision of the party's Halle Congress, as the successor of Berliner Volksblatt, founded in 1884....
. Later that year he produced the manuscripts of two more major works,
The Death ShipThe Death Ship is a novel by the pseudonymous author known as B. Traven. Originally published in German in 1926, and in English in 1934, it was Traven's first major success and is still the author's second-best-known work after The Treasure of the Sierra Madre...
and
The Treasure of the Sierra MadreThe Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a 1927 novel by the mysterious German-English bilingual author B. Traven, in which two penurious Americans of the 1920s join with an old-timer, in Mexico, to prospect for gold...
as well as several short stories, all of which were to be printed in the decade. During the 1930’s the six Jungle novels appeared, establishing B. Traven’s reputation as a champion of Indian rights in the context of capitalistic exploitation in Southern Mexico. By 1939, B. Traven’s output had all but stopped. While new editions on the existing oeuvre continued to appear, new works were limited to a few short stories and one novel (
Aslan Norval, 1960), which was refused by several publishers because they felt it did not read like B. Traven.
Originally, all of these works appeared in German, albeit a form of German that includes a great many usages seemingly of American-English origin. During 1933 English manuscripts of three novels (
The Death Ship,
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and
Bridge in the Jungle) were sent to the American publishing house Alfred A Knopf; an accompanying letter from B. Traven said that these were the original versions of the works in question and that the already-published
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
versions were translations. This conflicts with recollections of
Bernard SmithBernard Smith was an American literary editor, film producer, and literary critic. He is best remembered for his work at the Knopf publishing house, where he edited B. Traven, Raymond Chandler, and Dashiell Hammett, and Langston Hughes.He attended City University of New York, and in 1928 began...
, the editor of these books at Knopf, who has stated that the texts appeared to be literal translations from the German that required much work to render into acceptable English. To add to the problematic nature of these texts, there were major differences between the content of the English and German versions, a difficulty later compounded by revisions made to later editions.
The Cotton Pickers
A collection of stories set in poverty-stricken Mexico during the 1920s. The central character and narrator Gales, is an itinerant worker who leaves behind him a trail of opposition to oppression. Gales was later to appear as narrator of
The Death Ship,
Night Visitor and
Bridge in the Jungle.
The text is organized into two books, originally published separately; the first book, also called
The Cotton Pickers, was published in 1925. The complete book was published in 1926, named initially
The Wobbly, the title refers to a member of the
Industrial Workers of the WorldThe Industrial Workers of the World is an international union currently headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. At its peak in 1923 the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a...
, a US-based revolutionary industrial union that had a presence in Mexico and elsewhere.
The Death Ship
Set immediately after
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
,
The Death Ship describes the predicament of a merchant seaman who cannot find legal residence or employment in any nation because he lacks the proper documentation.
The White Rose
The White Rose (
La Rosa Blanca), published in 1929, centers on the ruthless efforts of the Condor Oil Company (fictional but modeled on real-life corporations) to take over oil-rich Indian land in Mexico.
To the present it continues to be quoted and referenced by radical activists condemning what they regard as the brutality of American imperialism, particularly with regard to oil .
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Two penurious Americans in 1920s Mexico join with an aged prospector and discover a rich source of gold; the novel describes the effects of greed on the men's relationship.
The book was adapted successfully into a
filmThe Treasure of the Sierra Madre is John Huston's American feature film adaptation of B. Traven's novel of the same name, in which two penurious Americans during 1920s in Mexico join with an old-timer to prospect for gold. The old-timer accurately predicts trouble, but is willing to go anyway...
by
John HustonJohn Marcellus Huston was an American filmmaker, screenwriter and actor. He was known for directing the films The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge The Misfits , The Man Who Would Be...
in
1948The year 1948 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Laurence Olivier's Hamlet becomes the first British film to win the American Academy Award for Best Picture.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue
...
.
The Jungle Novels
The
Jungle Novels appeared during the 1930s and consist of
Government,
The Carreta,
March to the Monteria,
Trozas,
The Rebellion of the Hanged, and
The General from the Jungle. These texts deal with the development of the social forces that result eventually in the
Mexican RevolutionThe Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle that started in 1910 with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz. The Revolution was characterized by several socialist, liberal, anarchist, populist, and agrarianist movements.Over time the Revolution...
in 1910 and are therefore historical novels. They reflect on the two decades years after the Revolution commenting also on the Mexico of Traven's time and the failures of the Revolution to alter the poverty of its peasants and workers.
Identity and life – 1907-1969
Much of the writing and examination of B. Traven’s life and works has concentrated on establishing his identity. The central problem is that no individual has ever claimed publicly to be B. Traven. Investigation into the background of Traven has led to the discovery of a number of figures, now generally believed to be the same person using different identities.
Hal Croves
The person most associated with Traven is his supposed agent, Hal Croves, whose story seemingly begins with the filming of
Treasure of Sierra Madre during 1947 which he attended, ostensibly, as B. Traven’s representative. Director
John HustonJohn Marcellus Huston was an American filmmaker, screenwriter and actor. He was known for directing the films The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge The Misfits , The Man Who Would Be...
showed particular interest in this individual and believed that he may have been B. Traven himself. Croves disappeared after the filming, making it impossible to obtain further information.
During the early 1950’s Hal Croves reappeared living in
Mexico CityMexico City is the capital city of Mexico. It is the economic, industrial, and cultural center in the country, and the most populous city, with about 8,836,045 inhabitants in 2008...
and even giving occasional interviews. He had traveled widely in Mexico. His archive contains records of numerous trips. People who knew Croves say that he had a German accent, which is substantiated by a recording of his voice.
Croves married his secretary, Rosa Elena Lujan, in 1957 and continued to deny that he was Traven, claiming to merely be his translator. Nevertheless, he did claim to be a writer and produced many film scripts, though none ever reached the screen. His wife believed him to be Traven, though she has never been able to produce definitive evidence. Croves died on 26 March 1969 and was cremated. His death was registered by his widow under the name of Traven Torsvan Croves, born Chicago 3 May 1890. No record of the birth of such an individual has ever been traced.
Amongst his legacies to his widow was the copyright of Traven’s works. Rosa Lujan gave an interview to
The New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded in 1851 and published in New York City. The largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States, "The Gray Lady"—named for its staid appearance and style—is regarded as a national newspaper of record...
in 1990, in which she reiterated her conviction, based on many conversations, that her late husband was B. Traven.
Traven Torsvan
Croves’ previous identity is universally accepted to be Traven Torsvan. This persona was uncovered by the investigations of Mexican journalist Luis Spota, who discovered a bank account in
AcapulcoAcapulco is a city, and major sea port in the state of Guerrero on the Pacific coast of Mexico, southwest from Mexico City. Acapulco is located on a deep, semi-circular bay. It is a port of call for shipping and cruising lines running between Panama and San Francisco, California, United States...
in the name of B. Traven, operated by an innkeeper locally known as Traven Torsvan, nicknamed El Gringo. His history was traced to 1925 when he first emerges in Mexico; like Croves, he was a member of a number of archaeological expeditions and he had shown great concern with the welfare of the Indian population. Furthermore, photographs of the two individuals corresponded closely, so it seems very likely they were the same person.
Spota was convinced that Torsvan and B. Traven were one and the same and published his findings in 1948. Torsvan was angered by this invasion of his privacy and disappeared for good, presumably to re-emerge as Croves.
Meanwhile, B. Traven communicated through correspondence with his literary managers, who themselves published newsletters, essentially designed to generate interest in the books. Traven insisted that all his written correspondence be returned to him. However, his editor, Bernard Smith, kept ten letters that he offered for sale after Traven's death. Via these newsletters an official biography emerged which stated that Traven was a mid-West American, born around 1900 who had moved to
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
at an early age. It was said that the books were initially written in English and translated into German as that was the only way to achieve publication.
Ret Marut
Shortly after Croves’ death, his widow made a further announcement, confirming rumours that earlier in his life Croves/Traven had lived in
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
and had been a politician with the name Ret Marut. This identification had been first suggested in the 1920s by
Erich MühsamErich Mühsam was a German-Jewish anarchist essayist, poet and playwright. He emerged at the end of World War I as one of the leading agitators for a federated Bavarian Soviet Republic....
, a revolutionary commander in
MunichMunich is the capital city of Bavaria, Germany. It is located on the River Isar north of the Bavarian Alps. Munich is the third largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg...
. Ret Marut too was involved in leftist politics and was a colleague of Mühsam, who recognised similarities in the work of Traven and the ideas of his former associate. Marut was a publicist and his main activity was editor of the radical magazine,
Der Ziegelbrenner (The Brickburner). Copies of this publication were found in Croves’s archive.
Research into Marut’s life has revealed that he was an actor from 1907 to 1915 before becoming a political activist. He was taken prisoner and sentenced to death in 1922 for his involvement in the
Bavarian Soviet RepublicThe Bavarian Soviet Republic, also known as the Munich Soviet Republic was, as part of the German Revolution of 1918-19, the short-lived attempt to establish a socialist state in form of a council republic in the Free State of Bavaria. It sought independence from the also recently proclaimed...
but escaped to
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
, sending a postcard to his old comrades stating that he had left Germany for good.
He spent time in prison at Brixton on issues connected with his papers. He eventually left
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1924 working as fireman on a ship, like the hero of
The Death Ship, and then disappears from history.
Film director
Mike NicholsMike Nichols is an American television, stage and film director, writer, and producer. Nichols is one of only ten people to have won all the major American entertainment awards: an Oscar, Grammy, Emmy and Tony Award.-Early years:...
states in a
New York Times interview in 2009 that his grandfather,
Gustav LandauerGustav Landauer was one of the leading theorists on anarchism in Germany in the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. He was an advocate of communist anarchism and an avowed pacifist...
, was a close friend and political associate of B. Traven in Germany. Both men were involved in violent chaos after the end of the Empire. Landauer died in custody after his arrest in 1919 while the man later known as B. Traven escaped to Mexico.
Summary
A general consensus has developed identifying Croves, Torsvan and Marut as one and the same person who is also B. Traven (see, e.g., Pateman,
The Man Nobody Knows, a recent full-length study). The timeline of his life as follows:
- 1907 – Appears as Ret Marut in Germany.
- 1922 – Left Germany for England, arrested in 1923.
- 1924 – Arrived Mexico, lived as Traven Torsvan in Acapulco.
- 1947 - Appeared as Hal Croves on the set of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
- 1948 – Traven Torsvan disappears following publicity.
- 1952 – Hal Croves emerges in Mexico City.
- 1957 – Married.
- 1969 – Died.
Nevertheless, the matter is not free from doubt due to a scarcity of evidence about the actual writing of the books and several unanswered questions which remain.
Chicago theory
Hal Croves' will stated that he was born Traven Torsvan Croves in Chicago in 1890. Although no record of his birth has ever been traced, this account is considered to be possible by many scholars as they consider that an American upbringing would explain the Americanisms that appear in the German texts. According to this theory he would have travelled to Germany as a teenager for reasons unknown.
Otto Feige theory
During the late 1970s,
Will WyattWill Wyatt is a British media consultant and company director, formerly a journalist, television producer and senior executive at the BBC. His career began in 1964 as a trainee journalist on the Sheffield Telegraph newspaper, before moving to the BBC in 1965 as a sub-editor in BBC radio news...
and
Robert RobinsonRobert Robinson is an English radio and television presenter.-Biography and career:His father was an accountant and he was educated at Raynes Park Grammar School and Exeter College, Oxford...
of BBC TV made a documentary about B. Traven and wrote a book based on their research. They traced Marut to London in the period 1923-4 where he was arrested as an illegal alien. Otto Feige was one of several names Marut had offered to police while being questioned in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
in 1923, prior to leaving for
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. Wyatt had searched files and records for these names and traced an Otto Feige to the small town of
SchwiebusŚwiebodzin is a town in western Poland with 21,757 inhabitants . The capital of Świebodzin County, it was part of the Zielona Góra Voivodeship from 1975-98...
. The town was originally in Germany but as a result of WWII became part of Poland, renamed Świebodzin. The evidence Marut had provided to the UK authorities – names, occupations etc. - tallied exactly with the facts of the family background of Otto Feige.
Wyatt found the elderly brother and sister of Otto, who confirmed from family knowledge and photographs that Marut/Croves was their brother, born 23 February 1882 and disappeared around 1905; he was well known locally for his involvement in radical politics. It was also confirmed that Otto Feige’s father had worked in a factory that made coal briquettes for use as fuel – a possible source for the name of Ret Marut’s anarchist paper,
Der Ziegelbrenner.
A major item of supporting evidence was a line-up of four photographs of Croves in all his supposed identities. This theory had the appeal of providing a mostly continuous narrative for the life of B. Traven without overlapping periods between the various identities. It is the only identity for which there is documentary confirmation.
The Feige theory is not popular amongst B. Traven scholars, mostly because it undermines any possibility that Americanisms in the texts could have been introduced by Marut, having been picked up during an American childhood. For instance, one biographer, K. S. Guthke pointed out that Wyatt has not proved his case definitely and that it is possible that Marut could simply have borrowed Feige’s identity.
Unanswered questions
The mainstream theory involving Croves, Torsvan, Marut and possibly Feige leaves many unanswered questions about Traven’s biography. These include the following
- The Cotton Pickers was sent to the publishers during 1925. Given that Marut would only have arrived in Mexico early that year, is it possible that he could have absorbed the degree of knowledge of Mexican culture displayed in that book?
- Another concern is that B. Traven work all but ended by 1940, whereas Croves continued to live for a further 29 years. Why was he not capable of further work?
- Many readers have noted the use of Americanisms in the text; how can this be reconciled with evidence that the books were written originally in German?
- Who translated the books between German and English and how is the uneven quality of both languages explained?
- Why was the identity of B. Traven concealed so carefully?
- Who was the author of Aslan Norval and why does it not read like B. Traven?
Shared authorship
Some critics have proposed that the authorship was shared and indeed, this is what Croves himself stated. Marut/Croves may himself have been one of the contributors with input from another figure providing background material and possibly plots. The complex nature of the texts lends credence to the joint authorship hypothesis. Many of the texts exist in several forms which are irreconcilably different; manuscripts and published version, German and English editions and first and revised editions have all been observed to contain up to 25% different material.
This theory, often referred to as the Erlebnisträger (experience-carrier) theory, was first proposed during 1964 by Max Schmid, who speculated that the character Gerard Gales who narrates four of the early novels, is based on a real person who provided much of the material for those texts.
Michael L. Baumann has presented a variation on the Erlebnisträger theory in
Mr. Traven, I Presume? (1997). Baumann contrasts the bitter and anti-Semitic tones in Marut's texts with Traven's humanism and sense of humour and suggests that Crove / Torsvan / Marut was not the creator of the original manuscripts. Baumann is not able to identify any individual as author, but some candidates emerge from his work, among them, the person behind Mr. Sleight, a central character from
The Bridge in the Jungle (1938).
Other pseudonyms
In addition to the names recorded above, researchers have come across numerous other pseudonyms used. These include Arnolds, Barker, Traves Torsvan, Richard Maurhut, Albert Otto Max Wienecke, Kraus, Martinez, Fred Gaudet, Goetz Ohly, Lainger, Anton Räderscheidt, Robert Bek-Gran, Hugo Kronthal, Wilhelm Scheider, and Heinrich Otto Becker.
K. S. Guthke (see his two German sources under
secondary sources below) located a variety of placenames in
Schleswig-HolsteinSchleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, comprising most of the two historical duchies of Schleswig and Holstein...
, northern Germany, such as
TravemündeTravemünde is a borough of Lübeck, Germany, located at the mouth of river Trave in Lübeck Bay. Travemünde arose out of a stronghold placed here by Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, in the 12th century to guard the mouth of the Trave, and the Danes subsequently strengthened it...
,
TraventhalTraventhal is a municipality in the district of Segeberg, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It gave name to the Peace of Travendal treaty signed there in 1700....
and the estate of Marutenhof (near
AchterwehrAchterwehr is a municipality, located in the district of Rendsburg-Eckernförde in the German Bundesland of Schleswig-Holstein.Achterwehr is situated 12 km west of Kiel and about 5 km south of the Nord-Ostsee-Kanal...
), around the city of
LübeckThe Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage is on UNESCO's list of World...
and all situated by or near the river
TraveThe Trave is a river in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is approximately 124 kilometres long, running from its source near the village of Gießelrade in Ostholstein to Travemünde where it flows into the Baltic Sea. It passes through Bad Segeberg, Bad Oldesloe, and Lübeck, where it is linked to the...
, which all shared similarities to Traven's aka Marut's various pseudonyms.
Other proposed identities
Various possible identities have been suggested, largely without evidence. These include:
- Jack London
Jack London was an American author who wrote The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The Sea Wolf along with many other popular books...
, writer
- Arthur Cravan
Arthur Cravan was known as a pugilist, a poet, a larger-than-life character, and an idol of the Dada and Surrealism movements. His real name was Fabian Avenarius Lloyd, the second son of Otho Holland Lloyd and Hélène Clara St. Clair. He had a brother, Otho, born 1885...
, boxer
- Illegitimate son of Kaiser Wilhelm II
- Adolfo Lopez Mateos
Adolfo López Mateos was a Mexican politician affiliated to the Institutional Revolutionary Party who served as President of Mexico from 1958 to 1964...
, former President of Mexico
- Plutarco Elías Calles
Plutarco Elías Calles was a Mexican general and politician. He was president of Mexico from 1924 to 1928, but he continued to be the de facto ruler from 1928-1935, a period known as the maximato...
, former President of Mexico
- Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist and satirist. Today, he is best known for his short story, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and his satirical dictionary, The Devil's Dictionary.The sardonic view of human nature that informed his...
, writer, disappeared 1914.
B. Traven – Stand-alone works
- The Cotton Pickers (1927; retitled from The Wobbly) ISBN 1-56663-075-4
- Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1927; first English pub. 1935) ISBN 0-8090-0160-8
- The Death Ship: the Story of an American Sailor (1926; first English pub. 1934) ISBN 1-55652-110-3
- The White Rose (1929; first full English publication 1979) ISBN 0-85031-370-8
- The Night Visitor and Other Stories ISBN 1-56663-039-8
- The Bridge in the Jungle (1929; first English pub. 1938) ISBN 1-56663-063-0
- Land of Springtime (1928) – travel book - untranslated
- Aslan Norval (1960) ISBN 978-3257050165 - untranslated
B. Traven – The Jungle Novels
- Government (1931) ISBN 1-56663-038-X
- The Carreta (1931) ISBN 1-56663-045-2
- March to the Monteria (1933) ISBN 1-56663-046-0
- Trozas (1936) ISBN 1-56663-219-6
- The Rebellion of the Hanged (1936; first English pub. 1952) ISBN 1-56663-064-9
- A General from the Jungle (1940) ISBN 1-56663-076-2
Works by Ret Marut
- To the Honorable Miss S... and other stories (1915-19; English publication 1981) ISBN 0-88208-131-4
- Die Fackel des Fürsten - Novel (Nottingham: Edition Refugium 2009) ISBN 0-9506476-2-4;ISBN 978-0-9506476-2-3
- Der Mann Site und die grünglitzernde Frau - Novel (Nottingham: Edition Refugium 2009) ISBN 0-9506476-3-2; ISBN 978-0-9506476-3-0
Primary material
Secondary material
- B. Traven, from Books and Writers
- B. Traven, from the Anarchist Encyclopedia
- B. Traven, biography with pictures from libcom.org
- His Widow Reveals Much Of Who B. Traven Really Was The New York Times, June 25, 1990, p. C13
- B Who? Paper by Barry Kritzberg October 8, 2007
- B. Traven's Identity Revisited Detailed article by Tapio Helen
- The B. Traven website
- The University of California Riverside Libraries are home to extensive collections (over 500 cataloged titles) of works by and about B. Traven Search the libraries' catalog, as well as the world's largest publicly accessible B. Traven archives. The archives contain unique unpublished materials, correspondence, and documents pertaining to both Ret Marut and B. Traven. An online exhibition The B. Traven Collections at UC Riverside Libraries was created in 2007 to highlight some of these collections.