SOURCE: Ingwerson, Faith, and Niels Ingwerson. “Introduction: The Age, the Man, and His Vision.” In Quests for a Promised Land: The Works of Martin Andersen Nexø, pp. 3-33. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984.

In the following essay, Faith and Niels Ingwerson trace the political and cultural climate during Martin Andersen Nexø's time, also providing overviews of his major works and themes.

Martin Andersen Nexø was always involved in the history of his age: he recorded it as he saw it, and he wanted to set his mark on it. His oeuvre is a statement that was meant to influence opinions and affect lives. A necessary delineation follows of his times, his life and career, and his artistic universe—the contours of which may be less clear-cut than they at first seem.

Aspects of Danish Social History

In 1869, at the birth of Martin Andersen, who in 1894 added Nexø to...