ABSTRACT
Many of Ludvig Holberg's works were translated into different European languages during his lifetime. To study Holberg's translation history is to study the reception of different 'Holbergs' through space and time. Critics and literary historians have stressed the fact that the English version of Niels Klim was reissued in 1746, 1749 and 1755. Niels Klim is the one work of Holberg's that has enjoyed continuous popularity from the beginning. Holberg's historical magnum opus is History of Denmark. Most people will agree that the comedies are the high point of Holberg's works. A few translations of single comedies were published late in the nineteenth century, but on the whole, Holberg's comedies in English belong to the twentieth century; the first collection of select plays was printed in 1912. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the dynamics behind the English translations change in step with the growing interest in literary history and in the nourishing of national sentiment.
