Saturday Rave: Hertha by Fredrika Bremer.

Hertha was published in 1856. It was written by Fredrika Bremer, and it managed not only to be both dark and funny, but to start a parliamentary debate in Sweden which resulted in a new law giving Swedish adult unmarried women their legal majority.

It also raised the profile of the argument for formal higher education for women. The result, in 1861, was the opening of a university for women teachers, the Högre Iärinneseminariet. As if this wasn't extraordinary enough, the novel also inspired the publication of the women's newspaper Tidskrift för hemmel.

There can't have been many novels which have has such as effect on the political world.

Fredrika Bremer was born in 1801 and brought up to be a young lady, an occupation that drove her almost mad with boredom and frustration. She started writing in order to raise money for charity, but she found in her writing the opportunity to speak the truth about women's lives in nineteenth century Sweden.

She said:

I would like to become an author to whose works everyone who is sad, depressed and troubled (and especially everyone of my own sex who is suffering) could go, assured of finding in them a word of redress, of comfort, or encouragement.

That's a quote from a letter. Here's one from Hertha:

One day is so terribly like another that people don't know how to distinguish one from another. For this reason many an inhabitant of a little town, that he might not drop fast asleep from sheer weariness, endeavours to keep himself awake by drinking punch, playing at cards, at many other such pastimes, which have the result of making the purse light and the heart heavy. The ladies again, when they do not partake of the gentlemen's pastimes - which sometimes happens - generally amuse themselves with coffee-parties, novel-reading, and petty scandal, by way of a little spice to this thin spiritual soup of daily life.

Sharp, funny stuff.

If you have very good eyesight you can read the whole novel HERE.

Word To Use Today: scandal. This word comes from the Latin scandalium, a stumbling block, from the Greek skandalion, a trap.