The Project Gutenberg EBook of Skipper Worse, by Alexander Lange Kielland

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Title: Skipper Worse

Author: Alexander Lange Kielland

Release Date: November 23, 2009 [EBook #30530]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SKIPPER WORSE ***

Produced by Ron Swanson (This file was produced from images
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THE HARVARD CLASSICS SHELF OF FICTION [From Vol. 20]
SELECTED BY CHARLES W ELIOT LL D

SKIPPER WORSE

BY ALEXANDER L. KIELLAND

EDITED WITH NOTES AND INTRODUCTIONS
BY WILLIAM ALLAN NEILSON PH D

P F COLLIER & SON
NEW YORK

Published under special arrangement with The Macmillan Company

Copyright, 1886
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

Copyright, 1917
By P. F. COLLIER & SON

CONTENTS

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

CRITICISMS AND INTERPRETATIONS:
I. BY H. H. BOYESEN
II. BY WILLIAM H. CARPENTER

SKIPPER WORSE

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Alexander Kielland was born in Stavanger, Norway, on February 18,
1849, of a wealthy family of shipowners. After studying law at the
University of Christiania he bought a brick and tile factory at Malk,
near his native town, and for some years it appeared as if he were to
follow the family tradition and become merely a substantial citizen
of provincial importance. But about 1878 he began to publish some
short stories in the Christiania "Dagblad," and in 1879 and 1880
there appeared two volumes of "Novelettes." These were marked by a
light satirical touch and a sympathy with liberal ideas, and were
written in a style which may well have owed some of its clarity to
the study of French models, made during the author's visits to Paris.
His first regular novel was "Garman and Worse," a picture of the same
small-town society which we find in the novel here printed. "Laboring
People" followed in 1881, when Kielland sold out his business and
became purely a man of letters. "Skipper Worse" was his third novel,
and among the more important of his other works are "Poison,"
"Fortuna," "Snow," "St. John's Eve," "Jacob," and a number of dramas
and comedies. He died at B