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RE: Verne's itineraries (Sweden?)

From: Garmt de Vries <G.deVries~at~phys.uu.nl>
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 10:15:42 +0200 (CEST)
To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>

Dear friends,

On Tue, 29 Jul 2003, Peter Harold wrote:

> According to a letter from Jules Verne to the swedish
> writer Fredrik Wetterlund

I looked up the letter that Peter mentioned. As Peter said, it was
reproduced in "Uno Asplund, Jules Vernes underbara resor" (Niloe,
Uddevalla, 1973), on page 73.

Here is a translation of the first few paragraphs of the chapter "Jules
Verne i Sverige" (JV in Sweden):

Yes, Jules Verne has in fact visited Sweden, although hardly any writer of
memoirs has noted it, and this despite the fact that his thin journal is
otherwise well studied [?].
The proof, that cannot be taken into doubt, is found in an article by the
well-known writer and historian of literature Fredrik Vetterlund,
published in the Svenska Dagblad on Feb 8 1928 on the occasion of the
100th anniversary of Jules Verne's birth.
Vetterlund had been a fanatic admirer of Verne since his youth and as a
young student he had written an article about his idol in a Christmas
newspaper [?]. Later he sent the newspaper to Jules Verne with some
personal lines of homage and received ans answer in a letter from Amiens
1898. Here the novelist tells a.o. that in the summer of 1862 he visited
Stockholm and from there made a trip through the channel down to Göteborg.
It is probable that during the journey he met literary Swedish. Perhaps he
was in touch withAugust Blanche, who had particularly good French
connections, perhaps also with Emelie Högqvist.
The visit to Sweden clearly took place just after Jules Verne had
completed his manuscript for Rive weeks in a balloon in June 1862.
Therefore he was completely unknown as a novelist in Sweden - as he was in
his fatherland - at the time of the visit, and he must have made the trip
here all alone, since his wife could hardly have kept him company at a
time when son Michel was not even two years old.
Jules Verne visited Norway already in 1861, which can of course be
interesting to note, because the Swedish-Norwegian union was working fine
at the time.
If, despite this one short visit by JV, have called this chapter Jules
Verne in Sweden, I hope the reader will excuse me, because quite early,
through his books, Jules Verne had such an enthusiastic contact with the
Swedish reader (a contact that still exists even today) that it's just
like all the time he was in the circle of acquaintances.

Next to this text, there is a facsimile of JV's letter to Vetterlund:

Amiens, 15 [?] janvier 1898

        Cher monsieur,
        Votre lettre vient de m'apprendre d'où venait le journal et
l'article qui m'étaient arrivés la veille. Je vous en remercie infiniment
bien que je ne puisse le comprendre. Je regrette de ne pouvoir vous
répondre dans votre langue à vous qui écrivez si correctement la mienne.
Et puis en 1862, lorsque j'étais à Stockholm, lorsque j'allais de cette
capitale à Gotheborg par le canal de Gotha, est-ce que je n'ai pas trouvé
sur ma route nombre de vos compatriotes qui parlaient le français? Et
voilà pourquoi nous autres, nous sommes si ignorants des langues
étrangères. Enfin, cher monsieur, je vous renouvelle tous mes
remerciements, et, en homme qui a conservé d'inoubliables souvenirs de
votre beau pays, je vous prie de recevoir l'assurance de toute ma
sympathie et de ma profonde amitié.
                                                Jules Verne

So, if, according to Piero Gondola della Riva, it is clear from the text
of Joyeuses Miseres that JV visited Scandinavia in 1861, Verne must have
been mistaken at the time when he wrote this letter to Fredrik Vetterlund.

Or, but this possibility seems less plausible to me, Uno Asplund is right
when he says that Verne visited Norway in 1861, and the Sweden in 1862.

Best regards,
Garmt.
Received on Wed 30 Jul 2003 - 11:16:52 IDT

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