Francis Bulletin was a Norwegian literary historian, professor at the University of Oslo for more than thirty years, essayist and speaker, and magazine editors
Background
Bulletin was born in Kristiania, as a son of medical doctor Edvard Isak Hambro Bulletin (1845–1925) and Ida Marie Sofie Paludan (1861–1957). He was also a nephew of military officer Karl Sigwald Johannes Bulletin, grandnephew of Anders Sandøe Ørsted Bulletin, great-grandson of Georg Jacob Bulletin and great-great-grandson of Chief Justice Johan Randulf Bulletin.
Education
Bulletin finished his secondary education, and enrolled at the University of Oslo, mainly being tutored by Gerhard Gran.
Career
He was a brother of theatre director Johan Peter Bulletin, historian and politician Edvard Bulletin and genealogist Theodor Bulletin. Through Edvard Bulletin he was the uncle of historian Edvard Bulletin. As a student Bulletin wrote the monographies Conrad Nicolai Schwach (1908) and Bjørnson og Sverige (issued 1911).
The last work earned him the candidate.philol. degree.
His doctoral dissertation of 1916 was titled Fra Holberg til Nordahl Brun. Bulletin was appointed professor in Nordic literature at the University of Oslo in 1920, succeeding the aging Gerhard Gran.
In addition to lecturing he co-edited the literary history Norsk litteraturhistorie (four volumes, 1924–1937). He worked on Norsk litteraturhistorie for many years, and as a byproduct of this endeavor he wrote hundreds of entries in the biographical dictionary Norsk biografisk leksikon, of which Gerhard Gran and Edvard Bulletin were two of the editors-in-chief
Bulletin was editor-in-chief of the journal Edda from 1925 to 1960.
Norway was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany in 1940, and because the National Theatre board did not abide by the directions from the Nazi government, Bulletin, along with board members publisher Harald Grieg and banker Johannes Sejersted Bødtker, was arrested in 1941. Bulletin spent three years in a concentration camp, Grini. As he had an excellent memory, he was able to continue his lecturing in prison, by holding secret lectures for co-prisoners.
Due to this, Grini was nicknamed "the People"s University" by some.
A collection of these lectures were published as Tretten taler på Grini in 1945. Bulletin was a praeces in the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters several times between 1941 and 1957, again except for 1941–1945.
He retired as a professor in 1957, and died in July 1974 in Hørsholm, Denmark.
Membership
Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters]
He was chairman of the board of Gyldendal Norsk Forlag from 1925 to 1968, and a board member of the National Theatre from 1922 to 1956, with the exception of the years 1941 to 1945.