The English Dane
  • Published: 13 April 2011
  • ISBN: 9781409016274
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 352
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The English Dane

From King of Iceland to Tasmanian Convict

Formats & editions
EBook
13 Apr 2011
Paperback
1 May 2006
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'A rollicking, roistering yarn about one of the most extraordinary adventurers of all time, written with the care of a true scholar adn the verve of a born storyteller. A triumph' - Magnus Magnusson

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 Using unpublished sources and letters, Sarah Bakewell tells his astonishing tale with dazzling verve.
  • Published: 13 April 2011
  • ISBN: 9781409016274
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 352
Categories:
Share…

About the author

Sarah Bakewell

Sarah Bakewell had a wandering childhood in Europe, Australia and England. After studying at the University of Essex, she wrote fiction and worked in bookshops before becoming Curator of early printed books at the Wellcome Institute Library for the History of Medicine in London. She curated an exhibition with Marina Warner for the Science Museum and catalogues rare book collections for the National Trust. She is the author of The Smart;The English Dane: From King of Iceland to Tasmanian Convict, and the bestselling biography How to Live: A life of Montaigne in one question and twenty attempts at an answer. www.sarahbakewell.com

Also by Sarah Bakewell

At The Existentialist Café
Humanly Possible
How to Live
The Smart
See all

Praise for The English Dane

An accomplished book

Sunday Times

Bakewell is superbly matched to the task. Her account of the world encountered by Jorgenson is as rich and nuanced as her description of his life

Independent

Precise, amusing and intriguing. A vivid and moving portrait of an extraordinary but flawed man... A terrific book

Daily Telegraph

Sarah Bakewell has a fine story to tell, and she is its skilled servant...A wonderful, intelligently told story

Thomas Keneally, Guardian

Splendid... An extraordinary story brilliantly told

Australian

Unsettling and powerful

Literary Review