[UTOPIAS] Parjumouf : saga ifrån Nya Holland.

THE FIRST WORK OF FICTION WRITTEN IN SWEDISH TO HAVE AN AUSTRALIAN SETTING.

Stockholm : Gadelius, 1817. First edition. Duodecimo, modern half green morocco over marbled boards, spine with raised bands and gilt lettering (sunned), modern marbled endpapers, original printed upper wrapper bound in (but lacking the lower wrapper), 98 pp; a crisp, clean copy in handsome modern binding. Ferguson, 691a.

The ideas and social attitudes expressed in the works of Swedish romantic poet and novelist C.J.L. Almqvist were highly unconventional for their period, being considered tantamount to revolutionary in many quarters of Swedish society – this, in spite of the fact that Almqvist was ordained as a Lutheran pastor at quite a young age. Parjumouf is one of his first published works, written at a time in his life when his main influence was the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In this novella, a story within a story, Almqvist relates the strange, romantic tale of Parjumouf, a woman who lives in the earthly paradise that is to be found on the western slopes of the recently-crossed Blue Mountains of New South Wales. Almqvist’s storyteller, who recounts the adventure to a gathering in a Bordeaux wine merchant’s, refers to Australia as both New Holland and Ulimaroa, a term Almqvist had borrowed from the Swedish geographer Daniel Djurberg, and which originally derives from the account of Cook’s first voyage.

There is no published English translation of Parjumouf.

Scarce. Two copies of this first edition are recorded in Australian collections (National Library of Australia; State Library of New South Wales).