Due North

An early morning walk through Copenhagen sets the pace for Maturin M. Ballou's account of northern Europe. He notices shop windows, street sounds, clothing and breakfast dishes before turning to the city's history and public buildings. Due North ranges through Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia and Russian Poland, with chapters on fjords, Arctic daylight, palaces, schools and the practical business of travel.

Ballou's curiosity also leads him to the burial mounds at Old Upsala and to the small study associated with Emanuel Swedenborg in Stockholm. Descriptions of places sit beside opinions about education, religion and government, including his stated intention to challenge common views of Russian rule. Readers interested in nineteenth-century travel writing can follow both the sights that attracted a visiting observer and the assumptions through which he understood them. The appeal lies in these particular encounters and in the mixture of everyday detail, historical anecdote and personal judgment.