History Commons^™

Squire Adamsson: Or, Where Do You Live? An Allegorical Tale From The Swedish Awakening, By Paul Peter Waldenström, Mark Safstrom

Scandinavian Studies: Faculty Scholarship & Creative Works

It is now over 150 years since Squire Adamsson appeared in bookstores and helped to launch its author, P.P. Waldenström, to prominence within the religious revivals that were then sweeping across Scandinavia. The themes of the novel touched on many aspects of Christian life and its challenges, but particularly drew from the theology of one group of dissenters in the Lutheran state church, the so-called “new evangelical” Pietists surrounding Carl Olof Rosenius (1816-1868). There are a variety of themes that can be found in this text, but perhaps none both so provocative and poignant as the unique presentation of congregational …