In the Cordilleras (1894) is an adventure novel, a sequel to On the Rio de la Plata, part of May's South American cycle. The book follows adventures in Argentina during the revolutions, emphasizing themes of justice, forgiveness, and the struggle with the
Goethe's masterpiece of an epistolary novel from 1774 (revised in 1787), pivotal to the Sturm und Drang movement, caused a cultural upheaval in Europe – a wave of suicides, "Wertherism" and the imitation of heroes in fashion and sentiment.