Books

Hafni� & Lipsi�, Sumptibus Iacobi Prevssii. 1741. 8vo. Cont. full mottled calf w. gilt back and 4 raised bands. Front board loose. Gilding on back and capitals worn. Complete w. the engraved frontispiece, 2 engraved plates and the foldable map of the underworld (placed after the title-page). Engraved title-page. Internally very nice and clean, on good paper. Originaludgaven. af Holbergs ber�mte utopiv�rk, Niels Klim i Undervendenen. Ehr.-M. XII:213 ff.First edition of this influential utopian mastepiece. The satirical piece of science fiction by the "father of Danish Literature", the famous Danish professor of Law and Philosophy, Ludvig Holberg, can be compared in style and setup to Swift's "Gulliver's Travels", which was published 15 years earlier. The sharp political satire is not bound to a specific nation, but to the entire human race, and thus gives a picture of human conditions and thought in general in this period. Though the work does not bear a title which directly indicates its obvious utopian connections, as does for instance More's "Utopia", the name of the land of the living trees, in which Niels Klim arrives, "Potu", is very likely to constitute a word game indicating it's obvious literary intention: Spelled backwards we get: "UTOP". The quaint creatures and societies that Niels Klim meets in the underworld are said to be comparable to the characterization he gives in his Epistles (III) of the different European peoples, and thus we find satirical examples of the English mixed with the Dutch (in Potu) and the French mixed with the Germans (in Martinia). "I det hele er Mods�tningen mellem Potu, Ideallandet - det kaldes virkelig saaledes i Bogens Slutning - og Martinia, Karikaturen, ikke blot geografisk, men historisk som mellem det attende Aarhundredes Realisme og det syttende Aarhundredes Formalisme. Potu er Naturrettens og den naturlige Religions Land, Martinia (for ikke at sige Lutheria) Ortodoksiens og Aristokratiets. Aands-Frihed og Stats-Tugt er Bogens Tendens. Da Holberg holdt saa haardt ved den faste Stat, turde han vel vente Absolution for at han ikke opgav den frie Tanke." (Vilh. And. II, p. 133). (= "All in all the contrast is between Potu, the ideal country - it is actually called so in the end of the book - and Martinia, the caricature, not only geographically, but historically as being between the realism of the 18th century and the formalism of the 17th century. Potu is the country of natural law and natural religion, Martinia (not to say Lutheria) is that of orthodoxy and aristocracy. Freedom of spirit and state-discipline are the tendencies of the book. Since Holberg stood so strongly on the dominating state, he ought to have expected absolution for not giving up free thought.").Ehr-M.: XII, 213.

Set in the year 1665, the story is narrated by Niels Klim, who returns to his hometown of Bergen after graduating from the University of Copenhagen. During a mountain climb with friends, he falls into a pit and, after fifteen minutes, emerges in the hollow interior of the Earth. This space is a miniature cosmos with planets orbiting a small sun. After drifting for a while, he lands on a planet called Nazar, in the kingdom of Potu (an anagram of "utopia"), where he encounters intelligent tree-like beings. Holberg's work combines satire with a fantastic voyage and embodies the spirit of the eighteenth century. Aside from its Latin language and passages of verse and prose adapted from classical authors, this novel is entirely modern in spirit. Its depiction of travel to exotic lands is reminiscent of Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" (1726), but with more wit and humor. Holberg's idea of a hollow Earth containing other habitable lands foreshadows Jules Verne's "Journey to the Center of the Earth."