Kristin’s death comes as a result of her caring for the body of a plague victim after having saved the woman’s child from human sacrifice – an attempt by villagers near the convent where Kristin has become a nun to appease the evil spirit that they believe has brought the pestilence upon them. The final volume of Sigrid Undset’s three part saga of medieval Norway, Kristin Lavransdatter, known by its individual title, The Cross, completes the story of its eponymous heroine and ends with her death during the bubonic plague pandemic of what Barbara Tuchman called “ the calamitous 14th century.” Having lost her husband, Erland, her friend, brother-in-law, and secret admirer Simon Andresson, and four of her eight beloved sons already, one would expect that she is worn out by life’s heartbreak and suffering. Scott.Kristin Lavransdatter: The Cross (image courtesy Goodreads) Translated from the Norwegian by Charles Archer and J. This edition markets Undset's trilogy as a medieval historical romance and Kristin is generally viewed as a heroine of world literature but there is a more profound spiritual element at work in the novels that brings a debt to Dante's Divine Comedy to mind: 'As we follow the arc of Kristin's life-from her early discovery of her willfulness to her efforts as an older woman to recover a pure heart-we traverse the whole Christian journey of the soul to God.' (Robert Royal, A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century). The novels were published in Norway in 1920-1922 and Undset was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928. These Bantam editions describe the novels as follows: Volume I: The Bridal Wreath (A Novel of Passion), Volume II: The Mistress of Husaby (A Novel of Marriage), Volume III: The Cross (A Novel of Leave-Taking).

Set in the 14th century, Undset's stories vividly describe life in medieval Norway.

Sigrid Undset converted to Catholicism in 1924 just after publication of this trilogy, a controversial act in the largely secular intellectual circles of Lutheran Norway.

Lovely mass market paperback edition of the complete English translation of Sigrid Undset's trilogy of historical novels, unabridged and complete with the illustrated cardboard slipcase. Item #416 KRISTIN LAVRANSDATTER - THREE VOLUMES IN THE ORIGINAL SLIPCASE A near-fine set, rare complete and in this overall condition. Small octavo, original illustrated wrappers, original illustrated cardboard slipcase. Undset, Sigrid Kristin Lavransdatter The Bridal Wreath - The Mistress of Husaby - The Cross

The Cross by Sigrid Undset