Harald Wieselgren

Harald Ossian Wieselgren (2 November 1835 – 17 March 1906) was a Swedish librarian, biography author and publicist.

Biography Wieselgren was born in 1835 in Västerstads socken, Scania, Sweden, to priest Peter Wieselgren, who also had a strong interest in cultural and personal history.

Harald Wieselgren enrolled at Lund University in 1852 and, after passing his chancellor's examination in 1854, was appointed as a temporary university assistant (amanuensis) at the Royal Library in Stockholm, but returned to Lund where he was awarded Master of Philosophy in 1856.

During this and the following years he served at the schools in Helsingborg and Stockholm, and for a few months as acting consistory notary during the bishop's visitation in the Diocese of Lund and as acting secretary to the chancellor of Lund University. During a six-month stay in Paris (1856–1857), he devoted himself to archival research and to the French press in a Scandinavianist direction.

After resuming service at the Royal Library, he was appointed second amanuensis in 1858, second amanuensis in 1861 and first amanuensis the same year, and librarian there from 1877 to 1900. For 13 years (1857–1870) he was also librarian to Duke August of Dalarna. In 1864 Wieselgren undertook a foreign trip on a public mission concerning the future new building for the Royal Library. From 1857 to 1865 he edited the Svenskt biografiskt lexikon new series (letters A–K) and from 1866 to 1879 the , to whose development he made great contributions. In 1867, Wieselgren married Hedvig Francisca (Fanny) Hjelt from Finland and had son , who was born in 1868.

Of the hundreds of biographies and portraits he wrote for the newspaper, he published a selection of fifty obituaries in 1880 under the title ('From Our Time'). His ('Pictures and Memories') (1889) includes a parliamentary gallery (from Stockholms Dagblad) and obituaries (from and the calendar ). writes in Nordisk familjebok: "In the art of biographies, W. must have been the foremost among the Swedes of his time. His perceptiveness in the fields of politics, learning and publicity, combined with a sympathetic outlook and a clear, smooth, and varied manner of presentation, made him particularly suited to the work of a biographer."

More comprehensive biographical works by him are Lars Johan Hierta (1881), "which in richness of fact and presentation is among our best monographs" , and (1884) about Camillo di Cavour. Also worthy of mention are the portraits (1897) and the biographies of artists Johan Fredrik Höckert (1900) and Johan August Malmström (1904). Wieselgren also wrote articles for Historisk tidskrift, , Ymer, , , , and . Anders Zorn's apt portrait of Wieselgren in the painting ('A Toast in the Idun Society') has become world-famous. A rich collection of letters to Wieselgren was left to the Royal Library by his son after his death in Stockholm in 1906. Wieselgren is buried in Lidingö cemetery.