Jens Peter Jacobsen Collection Marie Grubbe, Niels Lyhne, Mogens, the Plague in Bergamo, and Other Stories

In Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke claims that there are only two books he finds truly indispensable and that he carries with him wherever he goes: the Bible and The Collected Works of Jens Peter Jacobsen. In Rilke's words, reading Jacobsen is like "a whole world envelop[ing] you, the happiness, the abundance, the inconceivable vastness of a world. Live for a while in these books, learn from them what you feel is worth learning, but most of all love them. This love will be returned to you thousands upon thousands of times, whatever your life may become... it will go through the whole fabric of your being, as one of the most important threads among all the threads of your experiences, disappointments, and joys." In order to give every English language reader that same life-altering experience described by Rilke, we are please to offer in one volume all of the essential works of prose fiction by Danish novelist Jens Peter Jacobsen -- the ground-breaking novelist of the Modern Breakthrough and master of literary naturalism, and probably the greatest and most influential nineteenth century European novelist you've never heard of. Included in this volume are the following novels and novellas: Marie Grubbe (1876), translated by Hanna Astrup Larsen Niels Lyhne (1880), translated by Hanna Astrup Larsen Mogens (1882), translated by Anna Grabow The Plague in Bergamo (1882), translated by Anna Grabow There Should Have Been Roses (1882), translated by Anna Grabow Mrs. Fonss (1882), translated by Anna Grabow Jens Peter Jacobsen (1847 - 1885) was a Danish novelist, poet, and scientist, often publishing just under the name "J. P. Jacobsen." He is considered to be the founder of the naturalist movement in Danish literature and a key leader of the Modern Breakthrough. Originally finding success as a scientist, Jacobsen was the author of an early Danish translation of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Spies and The Descent of Man. As a writer of fiction, he was the author of Fru Marie Grubbe (1876), a ground-breaking work in its depiction of the downfall of a Danish noblewomen that is evocative of the later works of D.H. Lawrence, Niels Lyhne (1880), the story of an atheist struggling in a merciless world that is evocative of the later works of Albert Camus, and the short-story collection Mogens og andre Noveller (1882).