Since "Hunger" was written Hamsun has published over thirty large works-- novels, dramas, travel descriptions, essays, and poems. Every one of them is of a high order. Each is unlike the rest; but through them all flash in vivid gleams a dazzling witchery of style, a bewildering originality, a passionate nature-worship, and an imagination which at times takes away the breath. "Shallow Soil," in some respects the most contained of Hamsun's works, is perhaps best suited as a medium for his introduction to Anglo-Saxon readers. In a very complete analysis of Hamsun's authorship the German literary critic, Professor Carl Morburger, thus refers to "Shallow Soil": "Not only is this book Knut Hamsun's most significant work, but it gives the very best description available of life in Christiania toward the close of the century. A book of exquisite lyric beauty, of masterly psychology, and finished artistic form, it is so rich in idea and life that one must refrain from touching on the contents in order to keep within the narrow limits of this essay. A most superbly delicate delineation of the feminine soul is here given in the drawing of Hanka and Aagot; nowhere else is woman's love in its dawn and growth described with such mastery, with a deftness and sureness of touch which reminds one of the very greatest passages in that Danish classic, 'Niels Lyhne.'" Hamsun is now in his fifty-fourth year. The expectations aroused by his first book have been more than fulfilled; the star that was born overnight still shines with undimmed brilliance--nay, with a purer, warmer, steadier flame. The volcanic violence of earlier days has been mellowed and subdued; the "red eruptions of flame-tongued, primeval power" have all but ceased. In one of his latest works Hamsun himself notes this change in saying: "When a wanderer reaches fifty years he plays with muted strings." But with or without the sordine Hamsun's production is equally seductive, equally entrancing and compelling. All over the continent of Europe he is known and his writings treasured; in Russia his popularity exceeds that of many of its own inimitable writers. It is to be expected that the English-speaking world will accord him that appreciation which is the natural tribute to genius, irrespective of language or clime. CARL CHR. HYLLESTED. NEW YORK, December, 1913. CONTENTS PROLOGUE GERMINATION RIPENING SIXTYFOLD FINALE PROLOGUE I A faint, golden, metallic rim appears in the east where the sun is rising. The city is beginning to stir; already can be heard an occasional distant rumble of trucks rolling into the streets from the country, large farm-wagons heavily loaded with supplies for the markets--with hay and meat and cordwood. And these wagons make more noise than usual because the pavements are still brittle from nightly frosts. It is the latter part of March.