After "A saloonkeeper's daughter" was published in Norwegian in Minneapolis in 1887, it receded into oblivion to reside there for more than a century. In 2002 it was translated and made available to an english-reading audience. The essays collected in this critical companion approach Drude Krog Janson's novel from a range of various perspectives pertaining to social, cultural and gender history, aesthetic, generic and narrative fields of inquiry.