ABSTRACT
1654), and her father, Gustav Horn, was a Field Marshal in the Swedish Army. In contrast to the memoir and diary formats of most Swedish-life writings of the period, Horn's autobiography is a fascinating and ruminative document, partly secular, partly spiritual. Born and reared in the various arenas of conflict of the Thirty Years' War, Horn uses the tragic plagues and calamitous battles of that war as a backdrop for her personal disasters: the loss of her mother, the bitter feuds with her family, her protracted resistance against a proposed spouse promoted for the sake of political advantage, the death of her husband, and so on. Her life's drama, richly narrated with an unprecedented reliance on dialogue, unfolds largely among the aristocratic circles of the Lake Màlare region and concludes with her spouse's death in the Polish campaign of 1656.
