Chapter I: Front Matter

Transcriber's Notes:

1. Page scan source:
http://books.google.com/books?id=fuUsAAAAMAAJ

2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].

THE NOVELS OF

BJOeRNSTJERNE BJOeRNSON

_Edited by EDMUND GOSSE_

VOLUME XI

_THE NOVELS OF_

_BJOeRNSTJERNE BJOeRNSON_

_Edited by EDMUND GOSSE_

_Fcap. 8vo, cloth_

_Synnoeve Solbakken_
_Arne_
_A Happy Boy_
_A Fisher Lass_
_The Bridal March, & One Day_
_Magnhild, & Dust_
_Captain Mansana, & Mother's Hands_
_Absalom's Hair, & A Painful Memory_
_In God's Way_ (2 _vols._)
_Heritage of the Kurts_ (2 _vols._)

_NEW YORK_
_THE MACMILLAN COMPANY_

THE HERITAGE OF
THE KURTS

BY

BJOeRNSTJERNE BJOeRNSON

_Translated from the Norwegian by_

_Cecil Fairfax_

VOLUME I

NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1908

_Printed in England_

_All rights reserved_

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Upon his taking up his residence in Paris, in 1882, Bjoernson resumed an interest in prose fiction, which he had for so many years abandoned in favour of the drama. There can be no question that he was influenced in this by the successes of Alexander Kielland and Kristian Elster, who had begun to deal with the problems of Norwegian life in the form of short novels, which attracted immense public curiosity. After writing _Dust_ (1882), a very brief episode, Bjoernson started the composition of his earliest long novel, which he finished and published in 1884, as _Det flager i Byen og paa Havnen_ ("Flags are Flying in Town and Harbour"), a title for which we have ventured to substitute, as more directly descriptive, _The Heritage of the Kurts_. It is to be observed that, with the exception of Jonas Lie's _Livsslaven_ (which was not yet published when Bjoernson's book was begun), _The Heritage of the Kurts_ was the earliest novel, treating Scandinavian society on a large scale, which any Norwegian writer had essayed to produce. This may explain a certain cumbrousness in the unwinding of the plot, which has been noted as a fault in this very fine and elaborate romance.

The didactic character of much of the novel, especially of the later parts, was a surprise to contemporary readers, who were accustomed to much lighter fare from the novelists of the day. No less a personage than the great Danish writer, J. P. Jacobsen, joined in the outcry against "all this pedagogy and all these problems." Physiological instruction in girls' schools,--this seemed a strange and almost unseemly subject for a romance addressed to idle readers in Copenhagen and Christiania. But Bjoernson's serious purpose was soon perceived and justified, and the popularity of The Heritage of the Kurts was assured among the best appreciators of his genius. It will always, however, possess the disadvantages inherent on a tentative effort in a class of literature as yet unfamiliar to the veteran artist.

Translator, editor, and publisher of the English version alike desire to express their debt to Mr. C. F. Keary, whose knowledge of Norwegian matters is so widely recognised, for the help he has given in revising the translation throughout, and in particular for his advice in regard to the diction of the first section of the novel, which, in the original, is an extremely clever _pastiche_ of early eighteenth-century Danish.

E. G.

CONTENTS

I.--_FROM AN OLD MANUSCRIPT_

CHAP
I. "THE ESTATE" AND THOSE WHO LIVED THERE

II. WHAT FURTHER CAME TO PASS

II.--_JOHN KURT_

I. LONELINESS

II. A GENIUS

III. MAN'S BREAST IS LIKE THE OCEAN

IV. SAILS IN SIGHT

V. HOME LIFE

VI. FIRST RESULTS, AND THOSE THAT FOLLOWED

III.--_A LECTURE_

I. DETHRONED

II. ON THE MOUNTAIN

III. THE CHILD

IV. THE LAST YEARS IN THE GARDEN

V. THE LECTURE

IV.--_THE STAFF_

I. A GREAT LECTURE AND A LITTLE TOWN

I
FROM AN OLD MANUSCRIPT