
At the end of January, the manuscript collection received a manuscript by Elka Björnsdóttir (1881-1924) entitled “Various Poetical Discourses.” The manuscript contains Elka’s transcription of various poems that she found interesting. At the end is her explanation of the poems and their genesis, but she says that she wrote them on Sundays “when I could, and sometimes I was not in the mood to write, and that I wrote so densely and little by little was because I had little paper but wanted to write as much as I could on these sheets.” Elka compiled the manuscript in 1897, when she was seventeen years old. Elka worked most of her time as a worker in Reykjavík. She kept diaries from 1915 to 1920, which are preserved in the manuscript collection and have recently been published in the series Sýnisbók íslenskrar alþýðumenningar. The diaries provide a detailed description of life in Reykjavík at this time, as well as Elka's inner world. The collection has been given the collection number Lbs 4756 8vo.
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