FREDRIKA

BREMER (r8or–1865)  , Swedish novelist, was born near Abo, in Finland, on the 17th of August 18o1 . Her father, a descendant of an old German family, a wealthy iron master and merchant, left Finland when Fredrika was three years old, and after a year's residence in Stockholm, purchased an estate at Arsta, about 20 m. from the capital . There, with occasional visits to Stockholm and to a neighbouring estate, which belonged for a time to her father, Fredrika passed her time till 1820 . The education to which she and her sisters were subjected was unusually strict; Fredrika's health began to give way; and in 1821 the family set out for the south of France . They travelled slowly by way of Germany and Switzerland, and returned by Paris and the Netherlands . It was shortly after this time that Miss Bremer became acquainted with Schiller's works, which made a very deep impression on her . She had begun to write verses from the age of eight, and in 1828 she succeeded in finding a publisher for the first volume of her Teckningar ur hvardagslifvet (1828), which at once attracted attention . The second volume (1831), containing one of her best tales, Familjen H., gave decisive evidence that a real novelist had been found in Sweden . The Swedish Academy awarded her their smaller gold medal, and she increased her reputation by Presidentens dottrar (1834), Grannarne (1837) and others . Her father had died in 183o, and her life was thereafter regulated in accordance with her own wishes and tastes . She lived for some years in Norway with a friend, after whose death she travelled in the autumn of 1849 to America, and after spending nearly two years there returned through England . The admirable translations (1846, &c.) of her works by Mary Howitt, which had been received with even greater eagerness in America and England than in Sweden, secured for her a warm and kindly reception .

Her impressions of America, Hemmen i nya verlden, were published in 1853-1854, and at once translated into

English . After her return Miss Bremer devoted herself to her scheme for the advancement and emancipation of women . Her views on these questions were expounded in her later novels—Hertha (1856) and Far och dotter (1858) . Miss Bremer organized a society of ladies in Stockholm for the purpose of visiting the prisons, and during the cholera started a society, the object of which was the care of children left orphans by the epidemic . She devoted herself to other philanthropic and social schemes, and gradually abandoned her earlier simple and charming type of story for novels directed to the furtherance of her views . In these she was less successful . In 1856 she again travelled, and spent five years on the continent and in Palestine . Her reminiscences of these countries have all been translated into English . On her return she settled at Arsta, where, with the exception of a visit to Germany, she spent the remaining years of her life . She died on the 31st of December 1865 . See Life, Letters and Posthumous Works of F . Bremer, by her sister, Charlotte Bremer, translated by F .

Milow,

London, 1868 . A selection of her works in 6 vols. appeared at Orebro, 1868-1872 .