The visit of the physician (Swedish: Livläkarens visit) is a 1999 novel by Swedish writer Per Olov Enquist. It is one of his best-known novels.
With this book, for which he received the prestigious Swedish August prize, he received international recognition. The historical novel tells the story of a German doctor from Altona (now a part of Hamburg) Friedrich Struensee, who was asked to become the physician of Danish king Christiaan VII in 1770. The king turns out to be a hypersensitive personality, which has become mentalized by the minister of finance Reventlow, who played a central role in the upbringing of Christiaan. The physician will not only get in touch with the queen, Caroline Mathilde from England. He also obtains the absolute power in the Danish kingdom when Christiaan VII, with the shutdown of the cabinet, granted Struensee the power to issue decrees and laws. He carries out a great deal of reform, but does not disappoint his abolition of one of the nobility's privileges, the horror of the peasantry. Struensee and also the king in his bright moments are influenced by the French philosophers like Rousseau with their idea of Enlightenment. The nobility is rebellious and commits a coup. The physician is executed.
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