Doctor Glas A Novel

Stark, brooding, and enormously controversial when first published in 1905, this astonishing novel juxtaposes impressions of fin-de-siecle Stockholm against the psychological landscape of a man besieged by obsession. Lonely and introspective, Doctor Glas has long felt an instinctive hostility toward the odious local minister. So when the minister's beautiful wife complains of her husband's oppressive sexual attentions, Doctor Glas finds himself contemplating murder. A masterpiece of enduring power,Doctor Glasconfronts a chilling moral quandary with gripping intensity.

Hjalmar Söderberg (1869-1941) was one of the most distinguished of Scandinavian novelists. He was born and raised in Stockholm and spent the last twenty-five years of his life in Copenhagen. After working as a civil servant, he turned to journalism and eventually devoted himself full-time to a literary career. In addition to novels he wrote short stories and plays as well as literary criticism and philosophical works about religion. He has been praised for his fictional vignettes of Stockholm life and for being a forerunner in the use of psychoanalytic theory and stream-of-consciousness in his fiction. Söderberg's novels include <i>Confusions, Martin Birck's Youth</i>, and <i>The Serious Game</i>; <b>Doctor Glas</b> is regarded as his masterpiece.