In this Norwegian saga of restlessness, Hamsun presents young Edevart, a headstrong boy ill at ease with books, but fiercely self-determined and eager to escape his poor village of Polden. He becomes a close friend of August, a man-orphan, rootless, who sings fantastic tales of a wondrous world. In their years of seafaring, peddling, and raucous-raising-sometimes together, sometimes separated-Edevart grows in understanding, becoming a cunning businessman, experiencing the exhilaration and devastation of love and learning to enjoy the freedom of his wandering lifestyle. Nobel prize winner...

Hamsun's portrait of a man rejecting the claims of bourgeois society for a Rousseauian embrace of Nature and Eros, in a remarkable new translation.
"The work contains a harmony found only in the highest types of poetry; it is actually poetry set in prose, and boasts the best traits of each." Isaac Bashevis Singer

"I suffered no pain, my hunger had taken the edge off; instead I felt pleasantly empty, untouched by everything around me and happy to be unseen by all. I put my legs up on the bench and leaned back, the best way to feel the true well-being of seclusion. There wasn't a cloud in my mind, nor did I feel any discomfort, and I hadn't a single unfulfilled desire or craving as far as my thought could reach. I lay with open eyes in a state of utter absence from myself and felt deliciously out of it." - Hamsun

This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.

Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920 "for his monumental work, Growth of the Soil a grand, sweeping saga of sacrifice and struggle. This epic tale recaptures the world of Norwegian homesteaders at the turn of the 20th century. Rich in symbolism, it continues to resonate with modern readers." He insisted that the intricacies of the human mind ought to be the main object of modern literature, to describe the "whisper of the blood, and the pleading of the bone marrow." Hamsun pursued his literary program, debuting in 1890 with the psychological novel Hunger.

Since the death of Ibsen and Strindberg, Hamsun is undoubtedly the foremost creative writer of the Scandinavian countries. Those approaching most nearly to his position are probably Selma Lagerlof in Sweden and Henrik Pontoppidan in Denmark. Both these, however, seem to have less than he of that width of outlook, validity of interpretation and authority of tone that made the greater masters what they were."