Litteratur och litteratörer 2: Litteraturkritik Swedish 2017

Literature and Men of Letters 2 contains Hjalmar Söderberg’s collected reviews, his often wittily phrased questionnaire responses on literary matters, and his sharp polemics. All of this material is annotated in an extensive critical apparatus.

The commentary section also includes an essay on how Söderberg’s literary criticism has been evaluated in different periods. Of particular interest is the criticism written during the war years, as well as Söderberg’s own revisions between different editions. The volume further provides bibliographical information, presentations of all the authors reviewed, a chronological register of reviews, an index of reviewed authors and their books, and a general name index. This volume complements Literature and Men of Letters 1.

In 1889, at the age of twenty, Hjalmar Söderberg wrote his first review, of Strindberg’s Miss Julie, which he sent to Dagens Nyheter. Söderberg’s final review appeared in Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfarts-Tidning in 1937 and was titled Mussolini’s Face. His work as a literary critic thus spanned nearly fifty years and comprised no fewer than 130 reviews of more than 200 authors and nearly 450 book titles.