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Written in 1854-55 and translated after 140 years into English, this is the one and only novel written by a daughter of one of Norway’s best-known literary families. Camilla Collett had felt her creativity stifled and her literary ambitions thwarted by society’s conventional expectations of what a woman could properly achieve; it was not until she was a widow of 42 that she could finally finish her novel, which she called ‘my life’s long-suppressed scream’.
In an intricate study of relationships, the novel creates a bourgeois society reminiscent of Jane Austen, in which marriage is the only respectable career for a woman. Sophie, the youngest of four daughters of a cynical and disappointed mother, struggles against society’s precepts and her own conditioning to be allowed to make an independent choice; but all her surroundings can offer her by way of models are disillusioned wives, lonely spinsters or crazy old maids.
Summary
In an intricate study of relationships in which marriage is the only respectable career for a woman. Sophie, the youngest of four daughters of a cynical and disappointed mother, struggles against society's precepts and her own conditioning to be allowed to make an independent choice.
