PALMBLAD, VIMIELM FREDRICK, a Swedish writer of considerable merit, and one of the most. earliest and most zealous promoters of the literature of his native country, was b. in 1788 at Liljested, in East Gotland, where his father held a post under the government. While still a student at Upsala, Palmbald purchased, in 1810, the univer sity printing-press, and immediately entered'uPon the publication of several literary and scientific periodicals, which, being the first of the kind that had ever appeared in the Swedish language, attracted considerable notice, and by their. intrinsic merit, con tributed materially to the diffusion of general information and the creation of a taste for learning among the general Swedish public. The earliest of these were the Plus pharrus. a mixed literary journal; the Poetisk Kalender, an annual; and the S'vensk •ator Tidig, a literary review, which lasted till 1824. The Swedish writers Attcrbom and Hannuarskjold were associated with Palmblad in the management of these journals, and. like him, directed all their efforts to supplant the pseudo-classical school of litera ture, in favor of the romantic style, and to counteract the false French taste of that period, which. under Gustavus III., had been universally followed in Swedish literature
and art. Palmblad successively occupied the chairs of history and geography and of Greek literature in the university of Upsala; and at his death he left the charac ter of having been of the most industrious and influential Swedish writers of his day. His principal works ofner Sveriges Pegenter(1 831); Larobok i nyare Ilt:s torien (Ups. 1832); Ilandhok i physiska oq politiska Geographien (1837); Lcirobok,i Gco graphien, (Orebro. 1817); Gre•isk Fornzkunskab (Up.s. 1895); and in addition to these purely instructive works, among his various novels we may instance his Familfen Falk enssii.pd (Orel). 1814); Aurora .Tioningsmark (Oreb. 1846), which rank among the best of their class in Swedish literature. Palmblad was the editor of the great Swedish biogra phy, _Nano okonnige Szcenska Man (Stock. 1835-52); and besides being an active coadju tor in the direction of the Swedish literary society, for which he wrote numerous papers, he was an active contributor to various German works of celebrity, as Erscb ima Grilber's Allgeineine Eneykloptidie, the etc.