Caught in the Enchanter's Net

Amalie Skram is a major nineteenth-century Norwegian novelist, whose novels vividly evoke both the atmosphere of her native town, Bergen, with its bustlinglife and its grinding poverty, and the battle of the sexes at a time when sexual morality was the subject of a great Nordic debate. Erik Skram is a Danish writer and journalist at the centre of the literary life of Copenhagen, embroiled in the political and cultural upheavals of his day. The letters they exchanged during the last two decades of the nineteenth century present a lively picture of a decisive time in the development of both their countries into modern states. The letters provide a wealth of information about contemporary issues, from parliamentary procedure to the price of hatpins, and frank, at times scurrilous, gossip about the private lives of famous people. They also tell a love story, of a passionate attachment between two very different but equally headstrong people, from the first jolt of attraction through resistance, seduction, marriage, literary partnership and childbirth, to the final despairing separation.