[2] These facts, together with Jacobsen's essays, a study of the Faroe Islands published in the guise of a travel guide, and a volume of his letters, are sufficient to suggest that had he lived longer, he would have been one of the outstanding literary figures in Scandinavia in the twentieth century.

Their home was thus bilingual, and, according to Heinesen, a distant relative, Jørgen-Frantz spoke Danish to his father and Faroese to his mother and siblings.

His father died the following year, but Jacobsen continued his studies, passing his final examination and leaving school in 1919.

He gave up journalism in 1934 in order to write a history of the Greenland monopoly—a work that he never finished, in large part because of continued ill health.

[3] In 1927, Jacobsen was asked by representatives of the Faroese Students' Association to write a study of the relationship between the Faroe Islands and Denmark.

The literary qualities of this book are emphasized in the entry in Dansk Biografisk Leksikon from 1937, which reads that the volume "er anlagt som en grundig Vejleder for rejsende, men samtid skrevet med en Kærlighed til Stoffet, der hæver Bogen op over Genren og gør den til en Digters Værk" ("is in the form of a thorough guide for travelers, but at the same time written with a love of the material that raises the book above the genre and turns it into the work of a poet").

[4] In 1943, Christian Matras collected and published a volume of Jacobsen's newspaper articles under the title of Nordiske Kroniker ("Nordic Chronicles").

Originally published between 1925 and 1937, the articles cover a wide range of topics, some of which are related to those in Danmark og Færøerne, while others have a wider cultural interest, as for instance the essay on the Faroese dance.

The term "Nordic" is to be understood in a wide sense, including not only mainland Scandinavia and Iceland, but also England and the Shetland Islands.

In these articles Jacobsen discusses the extinction of the Norn language of the Shetland Islands and examines the nature of Faroese as an independent language, ridiculing the suggestion that it is really only a dialect; in another essay, "Den yderste Kyst" (The Farthest Shore), he produces an outstandingly beautiful and poetical description of the outlying island of Mykines.

In his introduction, Heinesen makes it clear that this is only a small selection of letters, which in total fill some 1,500 pages, and that it is, strictly speaking, not an autobiography.

It is not intended to idealize Jacobsen, but to show his incredible optimism and love of the life that he must surely at an early stage have been aware he was to leave before long.

In the words of Heinesen in the introduction: Det udvalg af Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsens breve, der bringes her—for det meste i uddrag, nogle dog in extenso—handler hovedsagelig om brevskriveren selv, om betydningsfulde tildragelser i hans liv, og om det sind, hvormed han møder denne sin skæbne.The selection of Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen's letters here presented—mainly in the form of excerpts, though some in extenso—is principally about the letter-writer himself, the significant events in his life, and the mental qualities with which he meets this his fate.In addition, the letters demonstrate Jacobsen's unswerving sense of style, his linguistic inventiveness, and give the reader insight into the background to the novel Barbara and the close relationship between Jacobsen and Heinesen, which a comparison of these letters with Heinesen's own writing suggests had a profound literary as well as personal significance.

One is, in fact, at times left with a feeling that these letters contain clues to a literary affinity of a special kind between two friends who had many stylistic traits in common.

There is then a gap until mid-1922, when there follows, in a completely different vein, a lengthy, humorous account of French student life in Grenoble, in which Jacobsen shows his skill at instant characterization.

Yet, even Grenoble is constantly compared with Tórshavn: the sunrise, the grass on the bastion, the mist-covered mountaintops—all of these images give the reader a sense of the author's homesickness.

The following section consists of letters written at the end of 1922 and beginning of 1923, by which time Jacobsen had been diagnosed as suffering from tuberculosis.

Inevitably, in the letters Jacobsen becomes increasingly concerned with his lengthy stays in the hospital, his operations, and his sickness, but he writes with humor and without a trace of self-pity.

It was in the midst of his sickness that he wrote his novel, Barbara, while suffering from the fickleness of his lover, Estrid Bannister, and the collection provides a letter-by-letter account of the writing of the novel, ending in his last letter with the statement that three chapters still wait to be written.

Of the intended contents of those chapters, he gives no hint, though he does state clearly that the novel is based on "the great human theme of Vanity"—and later develops this theme irrespective of the novel: Livet er i sin storladne og paradoksale mangfoldighed så lunefuldt, at man gør vel i at spørge sig selv om man egentlig bør tage det helt alvorligt!

Thi samtidig med at jeg elsker livet og næsten daglig--selv nu--nyder dets mangefarvede dråber, så folder jeg dog hænderne og sukker lykkeligt: Hvad er det dog alt.Life in its grandiose and paradoxical manifoldness is so capricious that one does well to ask oneself if one should take it entirely seriously!

For at the same time as I love life and almost every day--even now--enjoy its many-colored droplets, I nevertheless fold my hands and happily sigh: What is it at best.Later Jacobsen writes: Det er jo netop den vældige spænding mellem sorrig og glæde, der gør livet stort.

Mine største øjeblikke har jeg haft når gnisterne er sprunget mellem sorrig og glæde.

Og det allerstørste i livet er igen resignationen.It is precisely the enormous tension between sorrow and joy that makes life great.

The aptly named ship Fortuna arrives in Tórshavn, bringing Poul, the new pastor for the parish of Vágar, and the populace has gathered for the event.

Inevitably, they marry, but when in Tórshavn on a subsequent visit, Barbara meets and falls for the foppish Andreas Heyde (the instrument of fate in the second half of the novel), on a research trip from Copenhagen.

When she returns, exhausted, she is greeted by the people of Tórshavn in a mock repetition of the first scene in the book, to the words of her jealous cousin, Gabriel, who has meanwhile been forced into an unwelcome but advantageous marriage: "Hi, hi, nu tror jeg faneme … at Glansen endelig en Gang er gaaet af Sankte Gertrud.

Most are not readily identifiable, but the character of Andreas Heyde is clearly based on J. C. Svabo, who did, in fact, as is noted in Jacobsen's first work, Danmark og Færøerne, undertake a study of the Faroese economy in the late eighteenth century, only slightly later than the setting for this novel.

His position in Scandinavian literature is unlike that of any other; much of what has been published results from the decision by Christian Matras and William Heinesen to preserve his memory.

The one novel on which his reputation rests is unfinished and yet could scarcely have been finished more successfully, and this incomplete work has had enormous sales both in Scandinavia and beyond, standing as a milestone in twentieth-century Scandinavian fiction.