Squire Hellman : A Novella and Three Sketches

The publication of this book in 1893 marked the first time that a translation into English had occurred from modern Finnish literature. These four deeply contrasting pieces from the pen of Juhani Aho, one of the founding fathers of that new national consciousness, are remarkable in their combination of rustic settings and strange psychological subtlety. The title-piece is both harrowing and humorous. Squire Hellman is an angry fiend of a man, bellowing constantly at his wife and servants, as well as all local dignitaries, and whipping his horses in a frenzy if he gets frustrated. One day, at a taxation court, he impatiently lets loose one too many times! The bailiff and a local captain decide that it's time he paid for his social crimes, and devise a cunning way to force him to recant. The other three pieces are sketches of rural life, delineating with unusual intensity psychological situations where it is the characters' mindset which creates the drama: When Father Brought Home the Lamp about the coming of technology and the modern age; Pioneers about how heartbreakingly Finland's wilds were settled; and Loyal about young love and the resisting of temptation. Juhani Aho wrote many of these subtle and revealing shorter pieces, giving them a name and category of their own - splinters. This edition includes the original introduction by the translator, R. Nisbet Bain, which not only introduces the author, but also gives a fascinating summary of Finnish literature as it stood at the fin de sicle.