A short life of the author
Karen Blixen (1885–1962) was born Karen Christentze Dinesen on 17 April 1885 in Rungsted, Denmark, into an aristocratic family. She married Baron Bror Blixen-Finecke in 1914 and moved to British East Africa (now Kenya) to run a coffee plantation.
Life and Career
Blixen lived in Kenya from 1914 to 1931, managing the coffee farm largely alone after her divorce from Bror in 1925. Her lover, the English aviator and hunter Denys Finch Hatton, was killed in a plane crash in 1931. The farm failed, and she returned to Denmark.
Seven Gothic Tales (1934) — published first in English, under the pen name Isak Dinesen — was chosen as a Book-of-the-Month Club selection and established her as a major writer. Out of Africa (1937) — her memoir of life on the coffee plantation — is her most famous work, adapted into Sydney Pollack’s 1985 film starring Meryl Streep.
Winter’s Tales (1942) and Last Tales (1957) confirmed her mastery of the story form. Babette’s Feast (1958) — about a French chef who prepares a lavish meal for a puritanical Danish village — was adapted into the 1987 Oscar-winning film.
Major Works and Themes
Blixen wrote about fate, storytelling, aristocracy, and the relationship between art and life. Her prose style is deliberately archaic — she thought of herself as a storyteller in the oral tradition, closer to the Arabian Nights than to the modern novel.
Key Works
- Seven Gothic Tales (1934)
- Out of Africa (1937)
Collecting Blixen
Seven Gothic Tales first edition (Harrison Smith/Robert Haas, 1934) brings $300–$800. Out of Africa (Putnam, 1937) in fine condition with dust jacket brings $500–$1,500. Danish editions are separately collected. Blixen died in 1962.