Victoria is among Knut Hamsun's best-loved works-an incisive study of the coercive power of economic and social forces that is also renowned for its innovative and psychologically probing narrative techniques. Hamsun stages in riveting detail the ill-fated relationship between the novel's hero, Johannes, and the eponymous Victoria. When Victoria is driven to make a financially advantageous marriage to the son of a wealthy dignitary, the ground is laid for a subtly devastating conclusion that has haunted readers for well over a century.

Knut Hamsun (1859-1952) was a Norwegian novelist and dramatist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1920.