Johan Herman Wessel was a Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

-Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 poet. Some of his satirical poems are still popular.
The son of a painter, he was born and raised in Vestby

Vestby

Vestby is a municipality in Akershus county, Norway. It is part of the Follo traditional region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Vestby.-Name:...

, Akershus

Akershus

- Geography :The county is conventionally divided into the traditional districts Follo and Romerike, which fill the vast part of the county, as well as the small exclave west of Oslo that consists of Asker and Bærum...

, Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

, and was the elder brother of mathematician Caspar Wessel

Caspar Wessel

Caspar Wessel was a Norwegian-Danish mathematician and cartographer. In 1799, Wessel was the first person to describe the complex numbers. He was the younger brother of poet and playwright Johan Herman Wessel....

. He was a relative of the naval hero Peder Tordenskjold

Peder Tordenskjold

Peter Jansen Wessel Tordenskiold , commonly referred to as Tordenskjold , was a Norwegian nobleman and an eminent naval flag officer in the service of the Royal Dano-Norwegian Navy. He rose to the rank of Vice-Admiral for his services in the Great Northern War...

.

Living most of his (bohemian

Bohemianism

Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...

) life in Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

 dependent on casual work and weakened by a bad health and drinking Wessel became the popular and admired centre of Norske Selskab ("The Norwegian Society

The Norwegian Society

The Norwegian Society was a literary society for Norwegian students in Copenhagen. Its members included authors, poets and philosophers. The Norwegian Society was formed in 1772 by Ove Gjerløw Meyer...

") a very important club of Norwegian literary figures cultivating their national identity in Copenhagen, and writing in classical metres.

First of all Wessel is known for his many humorous and satiric verse tales (ed.