There are Crimes and Crimes

A Comedy

by

August Strindberg


Translated from the Swedish with an Introduction by Edwin Bjorkman






INTRODUCTION


Strindberg was fifty years old when he wrote "There Are Crimes and
Crimes." In the same year, 1899, he produced three of his finest
historical dramas: "The Saga of the Folkungs," "Gustavus Vasa,"
and "Eric XIV." Just before, he had finished "Advent," which he
described as "A Mystery," and which was published together with
"There Are Crimes and Crimes" under the common title of "In a
Higher Court." Back of these dramas lay his strange confessional
works, "Inferno" and "Legends," and the first two parts of his
autobiographical dream-play, "Toward Damascus"--all of which were
finished between May, 1897, and some time in the latter part of
1898. And back of these again lay that period of mental crisis,