The English Pupil Summary

The historical person Carl Linnaeus, known after his ennoblement as Carl von Linné, is the protagonist of the story set in December of 1777 about one month before Linnaeus' death. In the story, Linnaeus is crippled by age and senile; a series of strokes has left him mostly paralyzed and fairly unable to speak. He nevertheless manages to talk a servant into bundling him into a horse sleigh and taking him to Hammarby, his favored estate in Sweden. On the voyage, Linnaeus reflects on his life in a series of chaotic and usually unlinked reminiscences. He recalls his wife, Sara Lisa, as a shrewish woman. His living son, Carl Jr., is lazy and indolent; his daughters are like their mother except for the youngest, Sophia, who dotes on Linnaeus but is also engaged or married—he cannot remember which...