Pelle the Conqueror, Volume 1
'Pelle the Conqueror, Volume 1 ' Summary
When the first part of "Pelle Erobreren" (Pelle the Conqueror) appeared in 1906, its author, Martin Andersen Nexo, was practically unknown even in his native country, save to a few literary people who knew that he had written some volumes of stories and a book full of sunshiny reminiscences from Spain. And even now, after his great success with "Pelle," very little is known about the writer. He was born in 1869 in one of the poorest quarters of Copenhagen, but spent his boyhood in his beloved island Bornholm, in the Baltic, in or near the town, Nexo, from which his final name is derived. There, too, he was a shoemaker's apprentice, like Pelle in the second part of the book, which resembles many great novels in being largely autobiographical. Later, he gained his livelihood as a bricklayer, until he somehow managed to get to one of the most renowned of our "people's high-schools," where he studied so effectually that he was enabled to become a teacher, first at a provincial school, and later in Copenhagen.
"Pelle" consists of four parts, each, except perhaps the last, a complete story in itself. First we have the open-air life of the boy in country surroundings in Bornholm; then the lad's apprenticeship in a small provincial town not yet invaded by modern industrialism and still innocent of socialism; next the youth's struggles in Copenhagen against employers and authorities; and last the man's final victory in laying the foundation of a garden-city for the benefit of his fellow-workers. The background everywhere is the rapid growth of the labor movement; but social problems are never obtruded, except, again, in the last part, and the purely human interest is always kept well before the reader's eye through variety of situation and vividness of characterization. The great charm of the book seems to me to lie in the fact that the writer knows the poor from within; he has not studied them as an outsider may, but has lived with them and felt with them, at once a participant and a keen-eyed spectator. He is no sentimentalist, and so rich is his imagination that he passes on rapidly from one scene to the next, sketching often in a few pages what another novelist would be content to work out into long chapters or whole volumes. His sympathy is of the widest, and he makes us see tragedies behind the little comedies, and comedies behind the little tragedies, of the seemingly sordid lives of the working people whom he loves. "Pelle" has conquered the hearts of the reading public of Denmark; there is that in the book which should conquer also the hearts of a wider public than that of the little country in which its author was born.
Book Details
Language
EnglishOriginal Language
DanishPublished In
1906Genre/Category
Tags/Keywords
Author
Martin Andersen Nexo
Europe
Martin Andersen Nexø was a Danish author. He was one of the authors in the Modern Breakthrough movement in Danish art and literature. He was a socialist throughout his life and during the secon...
More on Martin Andersen NexoDownload eBooks
Listen/Download Audiobook
- Select Speed
Related books
The Nameless Man by Natalie Sumner Lincoln
It is an enthralling mystery novel that follows the gripping journey of a mysterious protagonist. This book takes readers on a suspenseful and thrilli...
A Desert Drama by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Tragedy of the Korosko (1898) is a novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was serialized a year earlier in The Strand magazine between May and Decemb...
The Deadly Dust by Murray Leinster
The book follows the story of a group of scientists who discover a deadly new substance that threatens to wipe out all life on Earth. Set in a post-a...
My Mortal Enemy by Willa Cather
It explores the complex relationships between two women, Nellie Birdseye and Myra Henshawe, who have been friends since childhood. The novel delves in...
The Smuggler by George Payne Rainsford James
It is a historical fiction novel that tells the story of a young smuggler named Jack Smith who becomes involved in a dangerous plot to overthrow the g...
The Widow Married: A Sequel to The Widow Barnaby by Frances Trollope
What if the widow Barnaby found love again, despite all the obstacles in her way? The Widow Married: A Sequel to The Widow Barnaby is a charming and...
A Woman's Life by Guy de Maupassant
A Woman's Life is a captivating novel by Guy de Maupassant that chronicles the life of Jeanne, a young woman born into a wealthy Norman family. From h...
Life and Death of Harriett Frean by May Sinclair
Harriett Frean is a well-to-do, unmarried woman living a life of meaningless dependency, boredom, and unproductivity as she patiently cares for her ag...
Paul and Virginia by Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre
Paul and Virginia was first published in 1787. The novel's title characters are very good friends since birth who fall in love, but sadly die when the...
Ten Kittens by G. A. Puckett
The stories of the ten kittens told in this book are true to life. They have been gathered from here and there over the country. All the kittens have...
Reviews for Pelle the Conqueror, Volume 1
No reviews posted or approved, yet...