The International (magazine)/Volume 3/Number 3/Our Authors

OUR AUTHORS

No name is better known throughout Bohemia than that of Ferdinand Schulz (see page 267), whom some thirty years of tireless, devoted labor in the various fields of literature have made known and loved by his people. As to the character of his work, one may best judge from the ideal he set forth in his first magazine, Osvěta (Enlightenment) which he began to publish in 1862. In his prospectus he said:

"The thought that prompted us to the publication of the Osvěta was that we might furnish the younger generation with reading that would awaken thoughts of the dignity and worth of human life, of the rights of mankind, and instruct them as to the daties to one's family, to the community and to the State."

The Osvěta, like many a good undertaking, did not prosper, and was soon discontinued, but the editor remained true to his high ideals, and transferred his literary work into other quarters. In 1863 he became associate editor of the Narodni Listy (National Journal) which position he holds to the present day. In 1884 he began to publish a new literary weekly, Zlata Praha (Golden Prague).which would hold its own by the side of many of the best papers of the kind among other nations. The Zlata Praha, an illustrated weekly, and the Narodni Listy, a daily, are the organs of the progressive and Liberal parties in Bohemia, standing in opposition to the corresponding Conservative publications, the Světozor and the Hlas Narodu.

Schulz has written several novels and a large number of short stories. He spent eleven years of his earlier life as tutor to Count Kounic. This gave him the opportunity to become intimately acquainted with the life of the nobility, which knowledge he has made good use of in several of his works. In addition to his works of fiction, he has made several historical studies, which are of great value as bringing to light some phases of the nation's history that have been overlooked by our very first historians.

Schulz is first and last a teacher. The purpose to teach some important lesson can be seen in every sketch, novel and story he writes. Indeed. in this he is almost too realistic, often sacrificing beauty to gain his end. Schulz, however, does not work for fame, but to benefit his readers, and in this he has met with abundant success.

His chief works are: 'George Podelrad,' 'Bohemian Emigrants,' 'The Life of Joseph Jungmann,' 'The Young Wife,' 'The Old Gentleman from Domasic,' 'Bohemian Magdalin,' 'The Lords of the Manor,' and 'Romances of the Nobility.'

Emilia Pardo Bazan (see page 257) is the most distinguished woman writer to-day in Spain. She has written essays, books of travel, novels, and short stories. Mrs. Gardiner says, in her preface to the translation of this author's, 'Russia: Its People and Literature':

"Her life has been spent in association with men of mark, both during frequent sojourn at Madrid and at home in Galicia, "the Switzerland of Spain," from which province her father was a deputy to Cortes. Books and libraries were almost her only pleasures in childhood, as she was allowed few companions, and she says she never could apply herself to music. By the time she was fourteen she had read widely in history, the sciences, poetry, and fiction, excepting the works of the French romanticists, Dumas, George Sand, and Victor Hugo, which were forbidden fruit, and were finally obtained and enjoyed as such. At sixteen she married and went to live in Madrid, where, amid the gayeties of the capital, her love for literature suffered a long eclipse.

"Her father was obliged, for political reasons, to leave the country after the abdication of Amadeus, and she accompanied him in a long, and to her profitable period of wandering, during which she learned French, English and Italian, in order to read the literatures of those countries. She also plunged deep into German philosophy, at first out of curiosity, because it was then in vogue; but she confesses a debt of gratitude to it, nevertheless. While she was thus absorbed in foreign tongues, she remained almost entirely ignorant of the new movement in her own land, led by Valera, Galdos, and Alarcón . . ."

Some of her novels have been rendered into English, but her short stories are entirely unknown to English readers. Her new novels are 'Un Drama,' which ran in 1895 in La España Moderna, and she has a serial in that well known magazine this year. She is also a contributor to El Imparcial, the leading Madrid daily.

 

Dr. Ulisse Ortensi (see page 253) is a writer of rare talent and varied gifts. Italy owes to him the first Italian version of Edgar Allan Poe's poems, published in 1892, when the translator was vicelibrarian of the Central National Library in Rome.

This volume was quickly followed by a metrical version in Italian of Robert Burns's works, which was most favorably received by the Scotch press, and highly appreciated by the Italian people, to whom the Scottish poet's writings had been a closed book up to that time.

Dr. Ortensi published a volume of original poems in 1893, and ’Nuove Poesie' appeared in 1896, It was from the latter volume that the poem we present to our readers this month, "Bet-Mariam" was taken. The embellishment by Vultan is particularly appropriate, containing, as it does, the Italian coat of arms.

Dr. Ortensi is a native of southern Italy, and completed his legal studies at the University of Naples. He is now librarian of the Royal Library at Abruzzi, and may be classed among the most promising Italian writers of to-day.

Anna Wahlenberg (see page 234) is one of Sweden's most promising young authoresses. She is married to a prominent journalist of Stockholm. About twenty-eight years of age, clever and bright, she has already written, besides several volumes of short stories, a play, which is one of the standard productions now on the royal dramatic stages of Stockholm and Copenhagen.