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Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
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Wed, 16 Aug 1995 10:58:19 -0500
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Wolf--

The trial in question was Danish, not Swedish.  A minister named Soren
Qvist was led by circumstantial evidence to believe that he had committed
a murder while sleepwalking, confessed to the crime, and was executed.
Later it was revealed that he had been framed.  The story has received
many literary treatments, including those by Steen Steensen Blicher,
Alexander Dumas, and the American Janet Lewis.  (Her *The Trial of Soren
Qvist* is a superb short novel, which I recommend.)  There was a French
movie made from the case, which was adapted into the recent US movie
*Summersby.*  (If I have spelled that right.)

Clemens may have encountered the story in S.M. Phillips, *Famous Cases of
Circumstantial Evidence.*  This is also the source used by Janet Lewis.

Charles Crow
Bowing Green State University

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