Ottilie Adelina Liljencrantz (January 19, 1876 – October 7, 1910) was an American writer of Norse-themed historical novels.[1]
Early life
Ottilie Adelina Liljencrantz was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Gustave Adolph Mathias Liljencrantz, a civil engineer, and Adelina Charlotte Hall Liljencrantz. Her father was born in Sweden. "I wish that I could trace my descent to some renowned Viking," she confided in an interview, "and I will not relinquish the pleasant belief that I have some valiant ancestor on Valhalla's benches," but history only confirmed her as a descendant of sixteenth-century Swedish clergyman Laurentius Petri.[2] Among her teachers was drama teacher Anna Morgan, who remembered Liljencrantz as "an attractive young woman with a mind unusually endowed. She had a vivid fancy and a true sense of proportion, she seemed to have been set apart for a career in literature".[3]
Career
When she was still a teenager, she wrote plays and produced them with the help of children in her neighborhood. One such drama, "In Fairyland" (1895), involved over 100 children when it was mounted as a benefit for the Home for Destitute Crippled Children.[4]
Books by Liljencrantz included The Scrape that Jack Built (1897, a children's book), The Thrall of Leif the Lucky: A Story of Viking Days (1902, a novel about Leif Erikson),[5] The Ward of King Canute (1903), The Vinland Champions (1904), Randvar the Songsmith: A Romance of Norumbega (1906, a novel with a werewolf theme),[6] and A Viking's Love and Other Tales of the North (1911, a collection of short stories published posthumously). Troy Kinney and Margaret West Kinney illustrated three of Liljencrantz's books. Her novel The Thrall of Leif the Lucky was adapted for a silent film, The Viking (1928).[7]
Personal life
Liljencrantz died after a surgery to treat cancer in 1910, aged 34 years, in Chicago.[8][9]
References
- ^ Olson, Ernst W. (1908). History of the Swedes of Illinois. Engberg-Holmberg Publishing. p. 840. ISBN 9785879573213.
- ^ "Miss Ottilie Liljencrantz" Indianapolis News (March 24, 1906): 7. via Newspapers.com
- ^ Anna Morgan, My Chicago (R. F. Seymour 1918): 52-54.
- ^ Burr Merrill, "Turned to Fairies and Goblins" Chicago Daily Tribune (January 20, 1895): 3.
- ^ "Side Lights on Literature" Brooklyn Daily Eagle (April 9, 1902): 12. via Newspapers.com
- ^ C. H. Gaines, "Harper's Bookshelf" Harper's Magazine (May 1906).
- ^ Kevin J. Harty, ed., The Vikings on Film: Essays on Depictions of the Nordic Middle Ages (McFarland 2011). ISBN 9780786460441
- ^ "Ottilie Liljencrantz" The American Scandinavian (1910): 17.
- ^ "Chicago Authoress is Dead" Chicago Daily Tribune (October 9, 1910): 7.
External links
- Works by Ottilie A. Liljencrantz at Project Gutenberg
- Jim Craig, "She Made the Vikings Come Alive" Under Every Tombstone (January 16, 2015). A blog post about Ottilie A. Liljencrantz, illustrated with newspaper clippings and book covers.
- Ottilie A. Liljencrantz's IMDB page.
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This page was last edited on 22 December 2023, at 09:17