Julian päiväkirja by Peter Nansen
QR code
"Julian päiväkirja" by Peter Nansen is a diary-form novel written in the early 20th century. It follows Julia Matilda Magens, a young woman in Copenhagen, as she records her constrained family life, her hunger for freedom and warmth, and the tug-of-war between a safe future with her dependable suitor Erkki and a dangerous fascination with a charismatic actor, Alfred Mörch. Domestic unease, social observation, and romantic longing shape her inner conflict. The
opening of the novel presents Julia starting her diary with a vow of honesty, sketching a bleak routine with a frail, loving mother, an ailing, self-absorbed artist father, and a wayward brother, then savoring tender nightly talks with her mother about love. New Year’s brings both yearning and a letter from Erkki that promises return and a respectable life, which she imagines with irony as comfort and slow suffocation. A visit to her kindly grandmother contrasts warmth and plenty with the chill at home. A trip to see Suleima ignites a dream of rescue by a “white sheikh,” soon fixed on the actor Alfred Mörch; gossip about his conquests both repels and magnetizes her. She watches a neighbor’s secret love affairs from her window, projecting fantasies of risk and escape. When Erkki returns, his gentleness and public possessiveness grate on her, and she postpones a proposal while their talk about Mörch sparks tension. Finally, in a reckless impulse, she sends Mörch an anonymous note to meet at the station, swears she won’t go, and then hints she has done something “terrible,” leaving the beginning on a poised edge of transgression. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Download for free
For your e-reader or reading app — Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, Calibre etc.
Kindle → Use Send-to-Kindle
Kobo, Nook etc. → Transfer via USB
Phone, tablet or computer → Open in a reading app
Other formats & older devices
There may be more files related to this item.
About this eBook
| Author | Nansen, Peter, 1861-1918 |
|---|---|
| Uniform Title | Julies dagbog. Finnish |
| Title | Julian päiväkirja |
| Original Publication | Helsinki: Emil Vainio, 1909. |
| Credits | Anna Siren and Tapio Riikonen |
| Language | Finnish |
| LoC Class | PT: Language and Literatures: Germanic, Scandinavian, and Icelandic literatures |
| Subject | Young women -- Fiction |
| Subject | Diary fiction |
| Subject | Man-woman relationships -- Fiction |
| Subject | Danish fiction -- Translations into Finnish |
| Category | Text |
| eBook-No. | 78845 |
| Release Date | Jun 11, 2026 |
| Copyright | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 797 downloads in the last 30 days. |
Project Gutenberg eBooks are always free!