In his own time, Gjest Baardsen was known as the “master thief,” the “king of escape,” or, in his own words, “Norway’s most famous and dangerous criminal.”
Born in 1791, Baardsen was jailed for the first time in his early twenties for burglary and sentenced to two years in the workhouse. It took him fifteen years to escape from the vicious ring of burglaries, arrests, imprisonment and escapes (57 in all!) in which he soon became enmeshed. It seems likely that he gradually became aware that complete freedom and a new life beyond bars could only be had by serving his sentence out.
In the winter of 1826, while he was under arrest and awaiting sentencing from the Supreme Court, he started work on his autobiographical novel, “Gjest Baardsen: My Life”, and continued writing when he was moved to Akershus Fortress in Oslo. His new life as a writer has opened up a new world of possibilities for him. It gave meaning to his life within the prison walls and was probably a decisive factor in his battle to serve the eighteen years of his sentence at Akershus.
It took Baardsen almost ten years to finish his autobiography. Published in 1835, it was the first autobiographical novel to appear in Norway and was widely read, with numerous editions appearing over the last two centuries.
Gjest Baardsen’s poems were written in Dano-Norwegian, which I have translated into English (see the book on this website).