1795 besökte Mary Wollstonecraft Sverige, Danmark och Norge under fyra månader.
Vi kan kalla henne "Frankensteins morsa" då hon var mor til Mary Shelley (som
dock inte var född vid tidpunkten). Hon skrev långa brev från sin resa som
samlades i bokform som Letters During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and
Denmark, och den boken finns att ladda ned i E-form här:
https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/mary-wollstonecrafts-adventures-in-scandinavia/
En del bakgrund till resan finns här:
https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/mary-wollstonecrafts-adventures-in-scandinavia/
Kort: hon hade mött en Gilbert Imlay, en "American revolutionary soldier and
commercial adventurer" (som gjorde henne gravid med Marys halvsyster Fanny
1793), och:
"A Norwegian captain had stolen some valuable silver cargo from one of Imlay’s
ships. So, with great brazenness, Imlay asked Wollstonecraft to travel to
Scandinavia, find out what had happened to the treasure, and seek compensation.
She agreed - how much for love and how much for adventure is not known - and
set off with her daughter and a maid. For the next four months, she bargained
with officials, made risky sea voyages, absorbed sublime landscapes, fed wild
strawberries to her daughter, and observed society through a critical eye: 'The
situation of the servants in every respect, particularly that of the women,
shews how far the Swedes are from having a just conception of rational
equality…'
When she returned to London she discovered that Imlay was living with a new
woman, an actress. At this news she went to Putney Bridge and threw herself
into the Thames. Two watermen dragged her unconscious from the river and found
a doctor who managed to revive her. A few weeks later she retrieved the letters
she had written to Imlay from Scandinavia and fused them with her journals to
create Letters Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark
(1796). The book, which perhaps deserved a more exciting title, moved
seamlessly from adventure story, to investigation of the self in nature, to
reflection on the French Revolution".
Intressant. Det var denna resa, som gav upphov till dessa resebrev, som satte
henne i kontakt nmed sin framtida make, vilket i sin tur gav upphov till
dottern Mary, med slutresultatet Frankenstein...
"The radical English philosopher William Godwin decided: “If ever there was a
book calculated to make a man in love with its author, this appears to me to be
the book.” In London, Godwin and Wollstonecraft began a love affair. Within a
year she was pregnant and, despite their notorious aversion to marriage, they
decided to wed. “I think you the most extraordinary married pair in existence,”
a friend commented. Wollstonecraft then gave birth to a daughter, the future
Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein (1818). She died shortly afterwards, aged
thirty-eight."
--Ahrvid
Ps. En annan litterär kändis som besökte Sverige var i äldre tid var Jules
Verne, men det var 1861 innan han slagit igenom som författare. HG Wells
besökte också Sverige, 1939 i början av september just som andra världskriget
brutit ut. Det finns en rapport om hur han talade inför Publicistklubben, med
Karin Boye i publiken (som året efter kom ut med Kallocain - man kan spekulera
i inspiration från besöket av Wells!).
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