Peter Andreas Heiberg

Who was Peter Andreas Heiberg?

Peter Andreas Heiberg was a Danish author and philologist. He was born in Vordingborg, Denmark. The Heiberg ancestry can be traced back to Norway, and has produced a long line of priests, headmasters and other learned men. Peter Andreas Heibergs father was the Norwegian-born headmaster of the grammar school in Vordingborg, Ludvig Heiberg, while his mother was Inger Margrethe, daughter of the vicar at the manor of Vemmetofte Peder Heiberg, a relative of Ludvig Heiberg, and Inger Hørning, who came from a family of wealthy Danish merchants.

His father died when Heiberg was just two years old, and his mother moved with the children to live with her father at Vemmetofte near the town of Faxe in Zealand. This was to be Heiberg's home until he went to grammar school, from which he graduated in 1774. In 1777 he took the greater philological exam, and in 1779 he left Copenhagen, presumably due to gambling debts. He then went to Sweden to join the Swedish military forces. One and a half years later, his family bought him out of his military service, and after a short stay in Uppsala, he went to Bergen, where he stayed with his uncle for three years. In Bergen Heiberg met several writers who inspired him to start writing himself. After his return to Copenhagen, he used his linguistic skills to get a job as an interpreter. Heiberg also translated a publication by the French writer Jean-Charles Laveaux, which was highly critical towards the upper class, this was likely the reason why Heiberg chose to publish the translated version anonymously. In 1790, Heiberg marries the 16 year old Thomasine Buntzen with whom he has the son Johan Ludvig.