The Four Sisters. A Tale of Social and Domestic Life in Sweden. Authorized American Edition, with the Author's Dedication. [Hertha]

Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson and Brothers, 1856. Reissue. Hard Cover. Fair/No Jacket. Reissue (and probably a pirated edition) of 'Hertha' under an alternate title. Backstrip loose, loss from corners, boards soiled, foxed throughout, stain to top corner of last section of pages, free endpapers removed. 1856 Hard Cover. xix-xxii, 393, [6] pp. Brown cloth, gilt titles and decorations. Translated from the original Swedish by Mary Howitt. Considered the first Swedish feminist novel, Bremer's classic work was an instant sensation, and caused sweeping social change in Sweden upon its publication: the resulting reform movement granted all unmarried Swedish women legal majority at the age of 25 and established Hogre Lararinneseminariet, Sweden's first female tertiary school. Sophie Adlersparre responded to these changes by founding Tidskrift for hemmet (Home Review), Sweden's first women's magazine. The magazine's board also founded the first Swedish women's rights organization, which they named after Bremer. A scene in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women features the March sisters reading the works of Fredrika Bremer. The author is often called 'the Swedish Jane Austen,' and popularized the realist style in Swedish literature. Given her influence, this is a surprisingly scarce work both in the Swedish original and in English translation.