Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/416

Karl Anders Kullberg (1813-57) has given us a splendid historical picture in his "Gustav III och hans hof," while his other works are not of much account. The works of Magnus Jacob Crusenstolpe (1795-1865) are of vast importance, though the spirit of hatred that prevails in them deprives them of a part of their value. King Carl Johan availed himself of Crusenstolpe's journalistic talent for personal ends, and the latter seemed at first to be entirely at the king's service. But suddenly he changed his mind and attacked the government in the most violent and reckless manner, for which he had to serve three years in prison. Nevertheless, he continued to the day of his death to "disfigure" the history of Carl Johan. This was the purpose of the novels "Morianen" (the Moor) and "Carl Johan och Svenskarne," which are called historical works, but which, nevertheless, when considered as pictures of the times, are very unreliable, the facts being frequently distorted and grouped simply to satisfy a party spirit. The style is always masterly, but on account of the prejudices of the author it fails to produce the desired impression. Karl Frederik Ridderstad (born 1807) has borrowed the materials for his interesting novels partly from history ("Drabanten," "Fursten," etc.), and partly from his own time ("Stockholms Mysterier," "Den svarta handen," etc.), and has also written dramas and lyric poetry. His style is somewhat broad and his characters are not always clearly drawn, but he has a fertile and vivid imagination, and his works are full of life and warmth. Here we must also mention the Finlander, Zachris Topelius (born 1818), whose series of novels, "Fältskärens berättelser" (the Surgeon's stories), is justly regarded as one of the finest prose productions in the Swedish language. The series consists in a number of graphically drawn pictures from life in Sweden and Finland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, for which the history of this exceptionally eventful period furnishes a very fine background. Both in Sweden