Nini Roll Anker's literary career spanned almost half a century, from her debut in 1898 with I blinde (Blindly) to the posthumous publication of Kvinnen og den svarte fuglen (The Woman and the Black Bird) in 1945. Anker wrote eighteen novels, four volumes of short stories, five plays, and a biography; she was also a prolific contributor of articles to newspapers and magazines. Although Anker was a respected and successful author during her lifetime, in critical circles she has always been overshadowed by her better-known contemporaries.

Anker was a tendentious writer who repeatedly challenged her society's values by exploring the privileges and limits associated with gender and class. In her writings she reveals herself to be a keen observer of all she witnessed as both a wealthy aristocrat who consorted with royalty and society's elite and as an antiroyalist and radical socialist who devoted her time and energy to assisting...