Eldon Knuth

Who Wrote Those Letters?: in Search of J¿rnjakob Swehn Eldon Knuth

For seventy years after the publication in Germany in 1917 of Johannes Gillhoff's best seller "J¿rnjakob Swehn -- der Amerikafahrer" (translated recently into English with the title "Letters of a German American Farmer") the readers of the book debated whether It was fact or fiction - and, if fact, who wrote those immigrant letters from Iowa back to his teacher in Germany. The present book is a factual narrative of the ten-year search which in 1988 revealed the true identity of J¿rnjakob Swehn and showed that most of the book is fact. The narrative documents how Swehn's family fared of five previously unpublished letters to Iowa from the Gillhoff family.