Boyesen, H. H.

Boyesen, H. H. (Hjalmar Hjorth) (1849–95) writer; born in Frederiksvärn, Norway. He spent much of his childhood with his maternal grandfather in Systrand, Norway, and studied at the University of Leipzig, Germany (Ph.D. 1868). He traveled to America (1869) and worked in Chicago as an editor of the Norwegian weekly, Fremad, before becoming a Greek and Latin tutor at Urbana University, Ohio. He wrote Gunnar (1874), a popular novel of Norwegian life, that was first serialized in the Atlantic Monthly. In 1874 he began teaching in the German department at Cornell, but he moved to New York City where he wrote and taught at Columbia University (1881–95). In his day he was known for such scholarly works as Goethe and Schiller (1879) and Essays on Scandinavian Literature (1895). In addition to several realistic novels, he wrote children's stories and poetry.