Source: National Archives & Historic Records of Norway
Literature & Poetry • Historical Archive • 🇳🇴 Norway • 1 views

Camilla Collett 🇳🇴

Jacobine Camilla Wergeland Collett (Known as "Camilla Collett")
Feminist Novelist, Essayist, Social Reformer, Author of Amtmannens Døttre
Born 1813-01-23 🇳🇴 Kristiansand, Norway
Passed Away 1895-03-06 Christiania, Norway
Lifespan 82 years old
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Notice / Correction
"A woman's heart is not merchandise for the marriage market, but a sovereign soul seeking truth and freedom."

Archival Overview

Norway's first major feminist writer and novelist whose 1854 masterpiece Amtmannens Døttre pioneered Norwegian realism and launched the women's emancipation movement.

Biographical Record

Jacobine Camilla Wergeland was born on January 23, 1813, in Kristiansand, the sister of Henrik Wergeland. Her intense, unfulfilled romantic connection with her brother's fierce literary adversary, Johan Sebastian Welhaven, profoundly shaped her inner emotional life before she married jurist Peter Jonas Collett.

Following her husband's early death, Collett published her landmark novel Amtmannens Døttre (The District Governor's Daughters, 1854–1855), widely acknowledged as the first realist novel and the foundation of feminist literature in Norway. She challenged arranged marriages of convenience and championed women's intellectual and emotional autonomy, inspiring Henrik Ibsen to write A Doll's House.

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Final Resting Place

Perpetual Memorial
Vår Frelsers gravlund
Oslo, Norway
GPS: 59.9208, 10.7450
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