The English Dane: From King of Iceland to Tasmanian Convict
Apr 2011 · Random House
4.5star
2 reviewsreport
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352
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About this ebook
This gripping nineteenth-century adventure stars Jorgen Jorgenson, who ran away to sea at fourteen and began a brilliant career by sailing to establish the first colony in Tasmania. Twists of fortune then found him captaining a warship for Napoleon before joining a British trading voyage to Iceland, where he staged an outrageous coup and ruled the country for two months.
Much lay ahead, from imprisonment in the hulks to patronage by Joseph Banks and travels in Europe as a British spy. But Jorgenson was dogged by his own excesses, and ended up transported as a convict to the very colony he helped to found. Here he reinvented himself again as an explorer, and, despite his sympathy for the people, was caught up in the terrible Aboriginal clearances. Using unpublished sources and letters, Sarah Bakewell tells his astonishing tale with dazzling verve.
Much lay ahead, from imprisonment in the hulks to patronage by Joseph Banks and travels in Europe as a British spy. But Jorgenson was dogged by his own excesses, and ended up transported as a convict to the very colony he helped to found. Here he reinvented himself again as an explorer, and, despite his sympathy for the people, was caught up in the terrible Aboriginal clearances. Using unpublished sources and letters, Sarah Bakewell tells his astonishing tale with dazzling verve.
Ratings and reviews
4.5
2 reviews
A Google user
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I found this book to be an excellent read. As an Australian of Icelandic/Danish/Norwegian descent (amongst other origins) I found it to be a fascinating insight into both the history of Iceland and Denmark, as well as the very first settlement of Tasmania and the intriguing life of Jorgen Jorgensen and the roles he played in Tasmania's exploration. Both Hans Wolner Koefoed and Bjarni Sivertsen are ancestors of mine. Not only did I thoroughly enjoy reading it the first time, I am now devouring it a second time!
Kirsten Lagoni, Melbourne, Australia
A Google user
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December 6, 2015
This should be a movie :) nobody would believe his life
About the author
Sarah Bakewell had a wandering childhood, growing up on the "hippie trail" through Asia and in Australia. She studied philosophy at the University of Essex, and worked for many years as a curator of early printed books at the Wellcome Library, London, before becoming a full-time writer. Her books include How to Live: a life of Montaigne, which won the Duff Cooper Prize and the US National Book Critics Circle Prize, and At the Existentialist Café, a New York Times Ten Best Books of 2016. She was also among the winners of the 2018 Windham-Campbell Literature Prize. She still has a tendency to wander, but is mostly to be found either in London or in Italy with her wife and their family of dogs and chickens.
www.sarahbakewell.com
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