(P. F. Siebold was a commercial traveller who had become acquainted with northern literature on his travels in the North.)
DRESDEN, February 10th, 1869
Mr. P. F. Siebold:
I MOST urgently ask you to forgive me for waiting until now to answer your kind note of the sixth of last month. A new literary work which at present demands all my time and all my thought must bear the blame for this long delay.
I am extremely grateful to you that you have chosen to translate “Brand” into German. The undertaking is certainly very difficult; but in your beautiful language it is possible to work miracles.
Do you not think it would be of advantage to add to the German edition a preface containing a short account of the reception the book has had in the three Scandinavian countries? In the course of three years five large editions have appeared. Councillor Hegel will be glad to give you any other needed information.
If you had not already chosen your publisher, I should have advised you to apply to the proprietor of the Scandinavian bookstore in Leipsic, Mr.
Helms, who has already published many translations from the Danish and Norwegian, and who, besides, is highly esteemed here.
We shall hardly meet at Christiania next summer. I do not intend to return so soon to the home where I find it too cold — in every sense of that word. I do not give up the hope, however, of sometime having the pleasure of personally making your acquaintance. Please give my regards to our mutual Scandinavian friends; and wishing and hoping that you may soon and successfully overcome all the difficulties connected with the editing, I am,
Yours respectfully and obligedly,
HENRIK IBSEN