A child prodigy, Bull was admitted to the Bergen orchestra as first violin at the age of eight. He soon was idolized on both sides of the Atlantic for his superb improvisations and his ability to play the violin polyphonically. Though he was hailed as "the Paganini of the North," some critics labeled him a charlatan for his apparently magic tricks on the violin. Bull counted among his friends the great names of his era: Schumann and Lizst, Emerson and Wagner. Longfellow and Hans Christian Andersen modeled characters on him, and he was in part the inspiration for Ibsen's Peer Gynt. Although he spent most of his adult life abroad, Bull was a tireless promoter of Norwegian art and culture. His concert improvisations were rooted in his native slåtter (folkdance tunes), and he modified his own instrument using the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle as a model. By mid-century, Bull realized his dream of establishing a national theater in Bergen. He gave Henrik Ibsen a start in theater management, employed the poet Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, and promoted the music of Edvard Grieg. His attempt to establish a Norwegian colony, "Oleana," in the United States, however, failed through poor management. The words of the poet Aasmund Vinje, "That surely would be a man to write a book about," have been taken to heart by authors Einar Haugen and Camilla Cai. In addition to providing the first comprehensive listing of Bull's works (with full descriptions of all known sources), analyses of his compositions and their influences, and reviews of his performances, this biography gives life once again to a fascinating and flamboyant figure.

Land of Their Choice was first published in 1955. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. This collection of "American letters" that immigrants wrote to friends and relatives in the lands they had left tells a little-known human story that is part of the larger saga of America. It constitutes a kind of composite diary of everyday people at the grass roots of American life. The letters published here, written by Norwegian immigrants in the middle of the nineteenth century, are truly representative of a great body of historical material - literally millions of such letters that immigrants of every nationality wrote to the people back home. Describing their journeys, the new country, the problems and pleasures of daily life, the letters afford new insight into the American past and at the same time reflect the image of America that was projected into the minds of Europeans in an era when millions were crossing the seas and moving west. The letters were written from many different parts of the United States. Many relate the experiences of settlers in the Middle West, particularly in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota. But there are also accounts of pioneer life in Texas and as far away from the Atlantic crossing as California. The story of Oleana, the ill-fated Utopian project established in Pennsylvania by the famous Norwegian violinist, Ole Bull, is revealed in a collection of letters written by settlers in this project. An English translation of the amusing ballad of Oleana adds verve to this section. Another fascinating portion of the volume is devoted to first-hand accounts of the transatlantic gold rush that drew Norwegians directly by ship from their native land to California in the 1850's. There are some letters written by leaders in Norwegian-American history, such as Johann R. Reiersen, who was a well-known newspaper editor in Christianssand, Norway, before he migrated to America, and the Rev. J.W. Dietrichson who sought to establish the Church of Norway on American soil and whose letters, now translated into English for the first time, relate his experiences in Wisconsin.