Three authors divide the honors in this field: Matthias Jochumsson, a gifted lyric poet, now in his old age; the promising young playwright, Johann Sigurjonsson; and Indridi Einarsson, now in his prime, whose most original contribution to Icelandic literature is herewith presented. The poet having excellent command of English, I am fortunate to be able (with his permission) to quote _ipsissima verba_ on his life and development. 'I was born in the North of Iceland, on April 30, 1851, and was a farmer's boy of good old family. My chief work at home was haymaking in summer, and in winter being a shepherd. Every spring I was up all the long bright nights, watching the flock that they should not damage the cultivated soil by eating the young grass. I think that solitude (from the eighth to fourteenth year of my life) has fostered my fancy and imagination and dipped me deep in the romanticism of that time (1858-64). In 1865 I went to Reykjavik, and was initiated at the Lyceum (Latin school) in the spring of 1866. I went through the Lyceum in ordinary course. When I began to read Virgilius I felt as if I got wings on my immortal soul, and I think I shall never lose them wholly again. I began to read the poets, starting with the comedies of Old Holberg the Dane, and passing to Schiller and Goethe and Heine. I read all plays of Shakespeare (in Danish translation, then). I studied "Oidipous Tyrannos," Sophocles' awful tragedy, in the original, and read Plautus and Terentius as other boys, Icelandic and Danish fiction. 'During my first year at college I saw Matthias Jochumsson's "Utilegumenn" (The Outlaws) performed at Reykjavik: they had then very fine Icelandic scenery, and went home in ecstasy over the performance, feeling that I had seen the brightest and strongest play in the world. Of my reading I thought "Macbeth," "Gretchen im Carcer" ("Faust" I), and "Oidipous Tyrannos" finest and fullest. While at Reykjavik I wrote "Nyarsnottin" (New Year's Night) and got it acted at the college, with the greatest possible success. That drama formed a turning point in my life--as the author of it I went to Copenhagen to pursue my studies as graduate student. I left college made to half of what I am.