Britain’s Education Act of 1902 created a unitary secondary education system emphasizing humanistic studies, eliminated funding for vocational programs, and served only academic students. Denmark’s 1903 Grammar School Act created a system with multiple academic programs (in classics, mathematics, and modern languages) and retained ample funding for vocational, agricultural, and folk high schools. The authors contributed to the momentum for secondary education. British authors largely advocated for a classical curriculum: Rudyard Kipling linked education to nationalist imperialistic ambitions and H.G. Wells feared cultural degradation. Some, for example, Thomas Hardy, sought classical study for the working class and viewed vocational training as second-class education. Alternatively, Danish authors across the political continuum portrayed workers’ education and skills as essential to the industrial project, economic competitiveness, and the collective good. Writers joined in struggles over secondary education reform. British Fabians worked closely with Robert Morant, the architect of the 1902 secondary education act; Kipling waged a public opinion campaign linking education to the Boar War. Danish authors in the Modern Breakthrough movement formed “the Literary Left” faction to help forge the Left Party’s positions on education and fostered closer ties among evangelical farmers and workers.

Long before Ibsen became a world-famous playwright, he achieved the status of bestseller in his home markets. His books were eventually printed in first editions of 10,000 copies, and whenever a new book came on the market it was greeted by eagerly awaiting readers throughout Scandinavia. This chapter explores the publication and reception of Ibsen’s books, and pays special attention to Ibsen’s readership. The chapter is based mainly on archival studies of sales’ and borrowers’ records from a number of Scandinavian bookshops and libraries, which collectively provide a unique insight into Ibsen’s readership. The study finds that wholesalers, academics, bookkeepers as well as craftsmen, peasant students and married and unmarried women were among the readers. His clientele can roughly be divided into two main groups: a primary group comprising readers who could afford to buy Ibsen’s books, consisting mainly of educated and well-to-do members of the public, and a secondary, less affluent group, largely dependent on libraries in order to access his writings. By the turn of the century, Ibsen’s books were published in cheaper and larger editions, which increased sales among readers of limited means.