Jürnjakob Swehn is the son of a day laborer from Mecklenburg who emigrates to the New World in 1868 to seek his fortune and prosperity. Aiming to own a piece of land, he starts working on a farm and later rents a small property. Through hard work, luck, and skill, his dream of wealth and respect becomes a reality. The book by Johannes Gillhoff is based on a real person. Carl Wiedow regularly wrote letters to his teacher, Gillhoff's father, in which he describes, among other things, the journey to America, the hard work on the farm, his marriage, and much more. The letters are mostly written in a very humorous style, making this work a highly entertaining read that has lost none of its charm to this day. This book is a high-quality reprint of the long out-of-print original edition from 1920.