The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Book Cover for: Victoria, Knut Hamsun

Victoria

Knut Hamsun

The Nobel Prize winner's poetic, psychologically intense portrayal of love's predicament in a class-bound society

A Penguin Classic

Set in a coastal village of late nineteenth-century Norway, Victoria follows two lovers whose yearnings are as powerful as the circumstances that conspire to thwart their romance. Johannes, a miller's son turned poet, finds inspiration for his writing in his passionate devotion to Victoria, a daughter of the impoverished lord of the manor, who feels constrained by family loyalty to accept the wealthy young man of her father's choice. Separated by class barriers and social pressure, the fated duo hurt and enthrall each other by turns as they move toward an emotional doom that neither will recognize until it is too late.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,800 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
  • Publish Date: Nov 29th, 2005
  • Pages: 112
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 7.80in - 5.06in - 0.28in - 0.22lb
  • EAN: 9780143039372
  • Recommended age: 18-UP
  • Categories: LiteraryClassicsFamily Life - General

About the Author

Knut Hamsun (1858-1952) was a Norwegian novelist, poet, and playwright hailed by many as one of the founders of modern literature. Born to a poor peasant family in central Norway, he worked as a schoolmaster, sheriff's assistant, laborer, store clerk, farmhand, and streetcar conductor in both Scandinavia and America before establishing himself as a successful playwright and novelist. His first novel, Hunger (1890), was an immediate critical success; he went on to write the novels Mysteries (1892), Pan (1894), Victoria (1898), and The Growth of the Soil (1917), the last of which earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920.

Sverre Lyngstad (1922-2011; translator, introducer, notes) was a scholar and translator of Norwegian literature and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He translated five of Knut Hamsun's works for Penguin Classics--Hunger (1890), Mysteries (1892), Pan (1894), Victoria (1898), and The Growth of the Soil (1917)--and was honored by the King of Norway with the St. Olav Medal and with the Knight's Cross, First Class, of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit.

More books by Knut Hamsun

Book Cover for: Hunger, Knut Hamsun
Book Cover for: Growth of the Soil, Knut Hamsun
Book Cover for: Mysteries, Knut Hamsun
Book Cover for: Pan: From Lieutenant Thomas Glahn's Papers, Knut Hamsun
Book Cover for: Children of the Age, Knut Hamsun
Book Cover for: Look Back on Happiness, Knut Hamsun
Book Cover for: Hunger: Translated From The Norwegian By George Egerton With An Introduction By Edwin Björkman, Knut Hamsun
Book Cover for: Hunger (Warbler Classics Annotated Edition), Knut Hamsun
Book Cover for: Wayfarers, Knut Hamsun
Book Cover for: Pan, Knut Hamsun
Book Cover for: Editor Lynge, Knut Hamsun
Book Cover for: Segelfoss Town, Knut Hamsun
Book Cover for: Hunger (World's Classics Series), Knut Hamsun
Book Cover for: The Segelfoss Novels: Children of the Age & Segelfoss Town, Knut Hamsun
Book Cover for: Wanderers, Knut Hamsun
Book Cover for: Chapter the Last, Knut Hamsun

Praise for this book

By the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

"Knut Hamsun's writing is magical, his sentences are glowing, he could write about anything and make it alive." --Karl Ove Knausgaard, The New York Times Book Review