Produced by Clare Boothby and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net _THE NOVELS OF_ _BJOeRNSTJERNE BJOeRNSON_ _Edited by EDMUND GOSSE_ _Fcap. 8vo, cloth, 3s. net_ _Synnoeve Solbakken_ _Arne_ _A Happy Boy_ _The Fisher Lass_ _The Bridal March, & One Day_ _Magnhild, & Dust_ _Captain Mansana, & Mother's Hands_ _Absalom's Hair, & A Painful Memory_ _LONDON_ _WILLIAM HEINEMANN_ _21 Bedford Street, W.C._ CAPTAIN MANSANA & MOTHER'S HANDS BY BJOeRNSTJERNE BJOeRNSON _Translated from the Norwegian_ LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1897 _All rights reserved_ _BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE._ [_The two somewhat anomalous stories which are here published together have little in common except the difficulty of finding a place for them in the category of Bjoernson's works._ "_Captain Mansana_," _under the title of_ "_Kaptejn Mansana, en Fortaelling fra Italien_," _was originally printed, in 1875, in the Norwegian periodical_ "_Fra Fjeld og Dal_." _It did not appear in book form until August 1879, when it was published, in a paper cover with a startling illustration, in Copenhagen._ "_Captain Mansana_" _was written at Aulestad. It was almost immediately published in a Swedish, and later in a German, translation._ _A Norwegian magazine, entitled_ "_Nyt Tidsskrift_," _was started in Christiania in 1882, and continued to represent extreme liberal views in Norway until 1887, when it ceased to appear. In 1892 an attempt was made to resuscitate this periodical, under the general editorship of J. E. Sars. The first number of this new series appeared in November of that year, the opening article being the story of_ "_Mors haender_" ("_Mother's Hands_"). _It was reprinted in August 1894, in the collection called_, "_Nye Fortaellinger_." _It is now for the first time translated into English._ _E. G_.] CAPTAIN MANSANA AUTHOR'S PREFACE. The following note was prefixed by the author to the first edition of "Captain Mansana: an Italian Tale":