Eric Hermelin

Eric Axel Hermelin, Baron Hermelin (June 22, 1860 – November 8, 1944) was a Swedish author and prolific translator of Persian works of literature. Hermelin was born into an aristocratic family in Svanshals, Ödeshög Municipality, Östergötland County and had a traditional education, at the end of which he spent a couple of years at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Uppsala, which he left without taking a degree. Already at this stage he seems to have developed a taste for alcohol, which later became an addiction, with drastic lifelong consequences. After an unsuccessful attempt at farming on a family estate, he began a wandering life abroad. In 1883 he went to the United States and eked out a living as a teacher, a carpenter, and a soldier, before returning to Europe in 1885. In 1886, he traveled to England and joined the British army as a soldier in the Middlesex Regiment (under the name of Thomas Edward Hallan). He went with his regiment to India in the following year. However, his army career in India proved a failure. He was much troubled by disease, and by then his drinking had developed into full-blown alcoholism, possibly in combination with the use of narcotic drugs. Nevertheless, he spent time on language studies, obviously in preparation for one of the language examinations that formed part of the British administrative system in India.