This series of Scandinavian Classics is publishedby The American-Scandinavian Foundation in thebelief that greater familiarity with the chief literarymonuments of the North will help Americans to abetter understanding of Scandinavians, and thus serveto stimulate their sympathetic coöperation to good ends
SCANDINAVIAN CLASSICS
VOLUME XIV
∵
THE FAMILY AT GILJE
BY
JONAS LIE
ESTABLISHED BY
NIELS POULSON
THE FAMILY AT GILJE
A DOMESTIC STORY OF THE FORTIES
BY
JONAS LIE
TRANSLATED FROM THE NORWEGIAN
BY SAMUEL COFFIN EASTMAN
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JULIUS EMIL OLSON
NEW YORK
THE AMERICAN-SCANDINAVIAN FOUNDATION
LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1920
Copyright, 1920, by The American-Scandinavian Foundation
D. B. Updike · The Merrymount Press · Boston · U.S.A.
Preface
To the Honorable Samuel Coffin Eastman, of Concord,New Hampshire, belongs the credit of havinggiven American readers an English version of TheFamily at Gilje while the author was still at theheight of his creative activity. Mr. Eastman, whowas a lawyer by profession, was a man of variedinterests, the author of a White Mountain Guidewhich has gone through numerous editions, andthe translator of Brandes's Impressions of Russia andPoland. He was familiar with the translations byMrs. Ole Bull of Jonas Lie's The Pilot and HisWife and The Good Ship Future. The Family at Giljewas called to his attention by Miss Amalia Krohg,of Christiania, and it charmed him so much thathe rendered it into English. The translation appearedserially in the Concord magazine, The GraniteMonthly, in 1894, and was illustrated with viewsfrom Valders, the mountain district where the sceneof the story is laid.
When the Committee on Publications decidedto include The Family at Gilje in the ScandinavianClassics, their attention was called to Mr. Eastman'sexcellent version, and permission was securedto reprint it. The translator consented to a revisionof his text so as to make it conform to the generalvistyle of the Classics and to interpret more accuratelysome of the Norwegian idioms. His death,in 1917, prevented his coöperation in the work ofrevision, to which, nevertheless, he had given hiscordial assent.
Hanna Astrup Larsen
Introduction
The story of Jonas Lie's life,