TELLEF GRUNDYSEN AND THE BEGINNINGS OF NORWEGIAN-AMERICAN FICTION By Laurence M. Larson The history of the literary achievements of the Norwegian element in the New World begins with the publication of Ole Rynning's famous "America Book" which came from the press in 1838.1 A year later a printer in Drammen brought out a " Description of a Journey to North America " and into the West by Ole Nattestad, another young immigrant who had been Rynning's fellow-settler in the Beaver Creek colony of Illinois.2 It is possible that Nattestad's book was written, at least in part, before Rynning began to prepare his " True Account," but the latter has the priority of publication and proved the more important work. These two pamphlets (for they were scarcely more than that) were in the nature of " guides " to prospective immigrants and were read widely, especially in southern Norway. But though useful and effective, they can be classed as literature only when that term is used in its more inclusive sense. The same must be said of the books, pamphlets, and journalistic writings of Norwegian-American origin that found their way to the press during the forty years following . The harvest was considerable, but the grain was not of the finer sort. The greater part of this material was of a religious character; at least it was produced in the interest of religion. Some of the authors aimed at spiritual edification , but the greater number wrote from the impulse of 1 Sandfœrdig Beretning om Amerika (Christiania, 1838). The preface is dated Illinois, February 13, 1838, and signed by the author. Rynning's book has been republished with a translation by the Norwegian- American Historical Association ( Ole Rynning's True Account of America , translated and edited by Theodore C. Biegen, Minneapolis, 1926). Ole K. Nattestad, Beskrtvelse over en Reise tu America Begyndt den 8de April, 1837, etc. (Drammen, Norway, 1839). 1 % STUDIES AND RECORDS controversy, of which there was much among the Norwegian pioneers in those early days. It may seem strange and almost incredible that Norwegians should have been settled in considerable numbers on American soil for nearly fifty years before anyone among them undertook to write anything in the form of literary fiction. The cause of this is not far to seek: the energies of the pioneer were engaged first with the conquest of the soil and next with the building of a new social order. The materials for such building were to a large extent brought from over the sea; but they had to be fitted into the forms demanded by the new environment and that proved to be at times a difficult and often a very delicate task. The first Norwegian to find a place in American literature was Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen, who went to the West in 1869. Boyesen was of the Norwegian intelligentsia and had received his education in the national university in old Christiania . When he came to America he was not yet twentyone years old, though he had doubtless reached an intellectual maturity considerably beyond his age. After some wandering Boyesen went to Chicago where he found employment in the editorial room of Fremad, an ephemeral journalistic venture of the early seventies.8 His association with Fremad was merely a matter of months; but while it continued he used his native idiom as his only form of expression. Meanwhile he worked at perfecting his English, and soon became a master of it. All his books were written in that language. His first story, Gunnar, was written in 1870 in Urbana, Ohio, where he had been appointed to the faculty of a small and struggling college of the Swedenborgian faith.4 8 Fremad began publication in 1868 and was discontinued in 1871. 4 " Urbana University " was opened in 1853 under favorable auspices but soon suffered a serious decline; in the early sixties it almost became extinct. A later revival of interest in the institution did not survive. In 1923 it ceased even to give a four-year course and accepted a junior college status. The student body is very small. Boyesen was not happy in Urbana. N O R WEG I A...