ABSTRACT
Victoria Benedictsson (originally Bruzelius, 1850-88), or Ernst Ahlgren as she chose to call herself as a writer, is, together with August Strindberg (1849-1912), regarded as one of the most important authors of what is known as “The Modern Breakthrough,” that is, the realistic and naturalistic movement in Sweden at the end of the nineteenth century. The ideal during this period was to “put problems to a debate,” as the famous Georg Brandes (1842-1927) demanded.1 During four intensive years, Benedictsson published four books and several articles. At her premature demise, she left her entire literary accomplishment, including several manuscripts and personal notebooks, to her close friend Axel Lundegård (1861-1930). She asked him in a farewell letter to proceed with her works in the way he himself found to be the most appropriate. Benedictsson and Lundegård were very close as authors and friends, and they also wrote the play Final: A Play in Three Acts (1885)2 together during her active period as an author. Soon after her death, he completed and published many of her manuscripts, and continued to publish letters and parts of her journal. In this way he gave her constant publicity even after her death. But Lundegård has also been accused of having benefitted too much from her talent and of having rewritten much of what he published after her death.3 Most of her papers and letters have now been made public due to Lundegård and later through the great effort of the editor Christina Sjöblad.4 The Swedish Academy has also recently published Benedictsson’s works in the series on Swedish Classics.5
