Swedish Destinies and Advetures

”Swedish Destinies” is an anthology from famous August Strindberg, a book with the ambitious subtitle ”Masterpieces of Strindberg: Stories from all Eras” Strindberg lived in Stockholm and experienced that he was much criticized and overlooked and then moved on to Paris. He was married three times, and had some hard times with his women. He wrote the essay ”Womens’ inferior under the Man” (1895) in Paris.

One story is told about the union of led founders in medieval Stockholm. One of it’s ”gesäll” members, a smart oddball called Bosse, had invented a new method of mixing metals and making led and also a new design of a led pitcher for wine, an artifact much better than the traditional product. This results that the masters of the union got scared and put a ban on his invention and Bosse in jail. The hard and nasty german traderunion from the Hanseic city of Lübeck, traders who was located in Stockholm, stealed the invention and started to found this new kind of led piece and sold it to the people of Stockholm. So the lesson learned was that the narrow minded trade union got swindled.

Swedens most expensive painting ever, the painting “Alpine Landscape” by August Strindberg. MUSD 4 was the prize at Sotherbys in London (source: disajn.se)

Visit the web sites for the Strindberg Museeum · Strindberg and Helium Flashstories · Strindberg texts at Project Runeberg at Linkoping University · Detailed article about Strindberg in the Encyclopedea Nordisk Familjebok