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In offering this novel to the English-reading public, I feel the need of an explanation. Book I of Giants in the Earth was published in Norway (Aschehoug & Co.) as a separate volume in October, 1924; Book II, one year later.

I am aware of the slight similarity existing between Johan Bojer's The Emigrants and certain portions of the First Book of my novel; and lest the reader should consider me guilty of having plagiarized him, I find it necessary to offer the information that The Land-Taking was in the hands of the Norwegian book dealers a little better than one month before Bojer's book appeared. In a letter to me, dated January 11, 1925, Mr. Bojer writes: "It certainly was fortunate for me that I got my book finished when I did. Had it appeared much later, I should have been accused of having plagiarized you."

The work of translating this novel has been a difficult task. The idiom of the characters offered serious problems. These settlers came from Nordland, Norway; and though the novel is written in the literary language of Norway, the speech of the characters themselves naturally had to be strongly colored by their native dialect; otherwise their utterances would have sounded stilted and untrue. To get these people to reveal clearly and effectively their psychology in English speech seemed at times impossible; for the idioms of a dialect are well-nigh untranslatable. A liberal use of footnotes was unavoidable.

If the old saying, that many cooks spoil the broth, is true, then surely the English text cannot be of much account; for many have worked at it. The following friends have helped with the translation: Mr. Ansten Anstensen, Columbia University; Miss Ruth Lima, Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota; Dr. Nils Flaten, Miss Nora Solum, Prof. Olav Lee, Miss Esther Gulbrandsen--all four of whom are fellow teachers in St. Olaf College; and Atty. John Heitmann, Duluth, Minnesota. I feel also greatly indebted to Dr. and Mrs. Clarence Berdahl, University of Illinois, for their many valuable suggestions and corrections. What I asked of these friends was a literal translation. They complied so willingly and so cheerfully. I take this opportunity to thank them all!

But most of all do I owe gratitude to my friend Lincoln Colcord, Minneapolis, Minnesota, who unified and literally rewrote the English text. As I got the translation from the others, I would wrestle with it for a while, and then send it on to him. When he had finished a division he and I would come together to work it over, he reading the manuscript aloud, I checking with the text of the original. How intensely we struggled with words and sentences! It would happen frequently that several pages had to be rewritten. But he never tired. His has been a real labor amoris. Were it not for his constant encouragement and for his inimitable willingness to help, this novel would most likely never have seen the light of day in an English translation.

St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota, July 15, 1927 O. E. Rölvaag