The New International Encyclopædia/Carlén, Emilia Smith Flygare

CARLÉN, kär-lắn', (1807-92). A Swedish novelist, noted for her stories of seafaring folk, fishermen, and smugglers, with whom as a child she had come in frequent contact, through the trading voyages of her father, Rutger Smith. She was born at Strömstad and married, at the age of twenty, the physician A. Flygare. After his death, in 1833, she decided to devote herself to literature. Her first novel, Waldemar Klein (1838), was followed by her marriage (1841) to Johan Gabriel Carlén, a lawyer and poet of Stockholm. Popular tales followed in rapid succession until 1852, when she lost a son and wrote no more until 1858. With her husband's death in 1875 her literary activity ceased altogether, although until that time her salon had been the literary centre of the capital. She founded charitable endowments in aid of students and of teachers, and of fishermen and their widows. Of her works (30 vols.), many are translated into German, French, and English. Characteristic are Gustav Lindorm (1839); The Rose of Tistelön (1842); and The Maiden's Tower (1848). She wrote, also, a bright autobiography, Reminiscences of Swedish Literary Life (1878).