Leonora Christina: Den franske Selvbiografi (The French Autobiography). 1673.
NkS 4261 4º

Fol. 1r: The first page on which Leonora Christina addresses Otto Sperling	Fol. 18v: The last page

From 1663 to 1685 the daughter of King Christian IV, Leonora Christina Ulfeldt (1621-1698), was kept prisoner in the Blue Tower at the Castle of Copenhagen under suspicion of complicity in her husband Corfitz Ulfeldt’s high treason. In order to influence the European public she wrote this autobiography in French and had it smuggled out in 1673. By way of introduction she addresses Otto Sperling the Younger who had encouraged her to write the autobiography.
Otto Sperling’s father of the same name was also imprisoned in the Blue Tower. As Ulfeldt’s and Leonora Christina’s family doctor he was suspected of being their accomplice. But young Sperling’s efforts to free Leonora Christina and his father were in vain. And the following year Leonora Christina started to write what should later be considered her principal work, the account of her imprisonment in Danish, Jammers Minde (Memory of Woe).

The manuscript of the French Autobiography remained in the possession of Otto Sperling the Younger. After his death it went to the Danish collector of books Christian Reitzer, and together with his collection it came to the Royal Library in 1721. However, it disappeared and did not turn up again until 1952 in Hamburg. In 1958 it was recovered by the Library.

20.2 x 15.3 cm.

See the entire autobiography on the website of the Manuscript and Rare Books Department Leonora Christine: Autobiography in French.

© Det Kongelige Bibliotek 2003