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The Trial of Sören Qvist (1947)

by Janet Lewis

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564460,542 (3.79)5
Originally published in 1947, The Trial of So?ren Qvist has been praised by a number of critics for its intriguing plot and Janet Lewis's powerful writing. And in the introduction to this new edition, Swallow Press executive editor and author Kevin Haworth calls attention to the contemporary feeling of the story-despite its having been written more than fifty years ago and set several hundred years in the past. As in Lewis's best-known novel, The Wife of Martin Guerre, the plot derives from Samuel March Phillips's nineteenth-century study, Famous Cases of Circumstantial Evidence, in which this… (more)
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this is a book of very beautiful and clear descriptions of scene and character. The plot is rife with question of good and evil and justice,. ( )
  snash | Dec 18, 2023 |
Although it's been a while since I read The Wife of Martin Guerre, I think I liked this second of Janet Lewis's fictional development of historical cases of circumstantial evidence. Set in 17th century Denmark, the story is rich with detail about place and character. Here he describes an alehouse wife come upon by a traveler, Niels Bruus, who figures largely in the unfolding of the plot. "A young woman with a good tall figure, a firm bosom and straight shoulders, came out of the inn and closed the door behind her, holding one hand still upon the latch.
With her came the aroma of the inn. It clung to the heavy serge of her garments, and she stood before the stranger in a sensuous aureole of warm air. The smell of beer, of wood smoke, of roasting meat and fish, of wool and leather impregnated with grease and sweat, all the fine compounded flavor of conviviality and food assailed the nostrils of the stranger with such a promise of good things behind the closed door that the walls of his stomach drew together painfully." (p. 13)

Later Lewis describes a spring evening:

"Anna Sorensdaughter took the long way home. There had been but a delicate warmth in this last day of April, barely enough to last over into the evening as the wind from the west rose gently and intermittently. In the grainfields there were but fine sharp spears of green, and in the beechwoods only the first unfurling of leaves. The great old oaks which stood one in each field throughout the plowed manor land were ever so faintly brushed with watery green. From amid the green transparent crowns of lindens the steep thatched roofs of farm buildings threw down their bluish shadow, lengthening toward the east, and every little granite pebble on the sandy roadway cast also its long shadow on the bright earth. THe air flowed about the girl's ankles almost as cold as the water in the small streams and touched her bare arms and her forehead pleasantly, and the contrast between the touch of the wind and the brightness of the evening sunlight delighted her." (p.65)

The interesting plot and its case of circumstantial evidence unfurl as the seasons pass and eventually lead to conclusion without resolution. Also, because a parson is involved, there is much thought given to faith and its role in human justice.
( )
  msmilton | Jul 18, 2018 |
Although it's been a while since I read The Wife of Martin Guerre, I think I liked this second of Janet Lewis's fictional development of historical cases of circumstantial evidence. Set in 17th century Denmark, the story is rich with detail about place and character. Here he describes an alehouse wife come upon by a traveler, Niels Bruus, who figures largely in the unfolding of the plot. "A young woman with a good tall figure, a firm bosom and straight shoulders, came out of the inn and closed the door behind her, holding one hand still upon the latch.
With her came the aroma of the inn. It clung to the heavy serge of her garments, and she stood before the stranger in a sensuous aureole of warm air. The smell of beer, of wood smoke, of roasting meat and fish, of wool and leather impregnated with grease and sweat, all the fine compounded flavor of conviviality and food assailed the nostrils of the stranger with such a promise of good things behind the closed door that the walls of his stomach drew together painfully." (p. 13)

Later Lewis describes a spring evening:

"Anna Sorensdaughter took the long way home. There had been but a delicate warmth in this last day of April, barely enough to last over into the evening as the wind from the west rose gently and intermittently. In the grainfields there were but fine sharp spears of green, and in the beechwoods only the first unfurling of leaves. The great old oaks which stood one in each field throughout the plowed manor land were ever so faintly brushed with watery green. From amid the green transparent crowns of lindens the steep thatched roofs of farm buildings threw down their bluish shadow, lengthening toward the east, and every little granite pebble on the sandy roadway cast also its long shadow on the bright earth. THe air flowed about the girl's ankles almost as cold as the water in the small streams and touched her bare arms and her forehead pleasantly, and the contrast between the touch of the wind and the brightness of the evening sunlight delighted her." (p.65)

The interesting plot and its case of circumstantial evidence unfurl as the seasons pass and eventually lead to conclusion without resolution. Also, because a parson is involved, there is much thought given to faith and its role in human justice.
( )
  msmilton | Jul 18, 2018 |
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The inn lay in a hollow, the low hill, wooded with leafless beech trees, rising behind it in a gentle round just high enough to break the good draft from the inn chimneys, so that on this chill day the smoke rose a little and then fell downward.
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Originally published in 1947, The Trial of So?ren Qvist has been praised by a number of critics for its intriguing plot and Janet Lewis's powerful writing. And in the introduction to this new edition, Swallow Press executive editor and author Kevin Haworth calls attention to the contemporary feeling of the story-despite its having been written more than fifty years ago and set several hundred years in the past. As in Lewis's best-known novel, The Wife of Martin Guerre, the plot derives from Samuel March Phillips's nineteenth-century study, Famous Cases of Circumstantial Evidence, in which this

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In 1626, Soren Jensen Qvist, the rector of Veilbye (or Vejlby) in Jutland, Denmark, was accused of the murder of one of his employees, when a body was found near his house.  Qvist was famous for his piety and general virtue, but he did have a bad temper.  Witnesses testified against him, and in some versions he became convinced of his own guilt.   He was later cleared either when the supposed victim returned to the area, or when the witnesses were found to be bribed.  This became one of the most famous events in Denmark, although the accounts vary in detail.  It was included in S. M. Phillip's Famous Cases of Circumstantial Evidence, which inspired this novel by Janet Lewis.   She describes the Parson as "one of the great company of men and women who have preferred to lose their lives rather than accept a universe without plan or without meaning."

It also inspired a novel by Danish writer Steen Steensen Blicher entitled Præsten i Vejlbye, or in English The Rector of Veilbye (1829), which was included in the Cultural Canon of Denmark by the Danish Ministry of Culture. Mark Twain's novella Tom Sawyer, Detective is based on the case, transposed to the United States of America.
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