Camilla Collett

Norway's first real feminist. Author of texts with female main characters. Social debater. Played an important part in the first phase of the bourgeois feminism. Honourary member of the Norwegian Association for Women’s Rights when it was established in 1884.

Born in Kristiansand. Grew up in Eidsvoll Vicarage. Moved to Kristiania (now: Oslo) after she married and lived here until her husband died. After that, she travelled a great deal, both in Norway and abroad.

Camilla Collett wrote her entir life, but it was only after she married that she was allowed to participate in public debate, and even then, only as long as she used a pen name. She was probably co-writer of many of her husband's, Peter Jonas Collett's, texts in the political newsprint Den Constitusjonelle ("The Constitutional"). She published her first novel anonymously at age 41, the groundbreaking novel Amtmandens Døttre ("The District Governor's Daughters"). In 1873, she published in her own name for the first time. 

Amtmandens Døttre from 1854 was highly controversial. Its topic was women's lack of authority over their own lives and marriages. Collett's message was that love between a man and a woman has no meaning, not as long as society demands that one of the parts is completely passive. She herself saw the novel as "A scream. My life's longest restrained scream". 

Camilla Collett wished to liberate women's emotions. To achieve this, she became a public debater. This was regarded as highly unfitting for a woman by her contemporaries. She wanted to make women conscious of their own worth as human beings. Women should be appreciated for who they were themselves, not for whose daughters, sisters of wives they were.