An influential political journalist and author, Vilhelm Topsøe was a transitional figure in Danish cultural life in the decades around 1870. His career coincided with the Modern Breakthrough in Nordic literature and with the protracted stalemate between progressive and conservative political, social, and cultural forces in the wake of the loss of the southern provinces of Denmark to Germany in 1864. During his short life and within his limited literary production, he came to epitomize the critical opposition to populist liberalism in parliament and to radical liberalism on the cultural scene. He was an intellectual in constant search for reasoned continuity and coherence at a time when ideological controversies dominated the national agenda. Not surprisingly, skepticism, irony, and satire penetrate several of his works.

Torn between the orderly values of a bygone Romantic-idealistic era and scientific claims grounded in modern socio-economic reality, Topsøe articulated troubling literary...