Kristin Lavransdatter: The Mistress of Husaby (Volume II)

By Sigrid Undset | Translated by Charles Archer

The Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy, Sigrid Undset’s most famous work, is the story of an ordinary woman’s life in fourteenth-century Norway. 

The Mistress of Husaby―Volume II of Kristin Lavransdatter―follows Kristin upon her marriage to Erlend Nikulaussön and her assumption of the duties of mistress of Husaby, Erlend’s family estate. Having repented of her sins and reckoned with their consequences for her new life, Kristin raises her sons and seeks reconciliation with her own mother and father. Yet the sternest challenge for Kristin comes when Erlend, embittered and impetuous, breaches their marital bond and draws charges of treason to the king.

“Through God’s mercy were we two, all unworthy, joined together in  holy wedlock.…Should I think of aught else than that I am  his wife and he is my husband as long as we both live?”

Kristin Lavransdatter received immediate and worldwide appreciation as an exemplar of historical fiction and spiritual sensibility: hailed as the “noblest work of fiction ever to have been inspired by the Catholic art of life”; ranked amongst the greatest novels in world literature; compared favorably to Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov; and applauded for its revelation of the medieval world “with the richness and fullness of indisputable genius.” At the heart of Kristin Lavransdatter, the source of its dramatic power and poignant beauty, is religion―the relationship between creature and Creator. Leaving no gap between this world and God’s world, Undset tells her trilogy with unwavering courage and conviction in the facts of man’s freedom and God’s mercy.

Sigrid Undset (1882–1949) was a Norwegian novelist and essayist and a convert to the Catholic faith. In 1928, she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. A number of Undset’s books are available from Cluny, including The Wild Orchid, The Burning Bush, and Saga of Saints.

Paperback: 364pp.

ISBN: 978-1685953874