Bibliotheca Norvegica

Bibliotheca Norvegica is a four-volume bibliography of Norwegian literature edited by Hjalmar Pettersen. The four volumes were published between 1899 and 1924, and comprise together more than 3,300 pages. The first volume is titled Norsk boglexikon 1643–1813 and features a register of Norwegian books published prior to 1814. The second is titled Norge og nordmænd i udlandets literatur, registering Norway and the Norwegian people in non-Norwegian literature. The third has the title Norske forfattere før 1814 and the fourth Norske forfattere efter 1814, recording the works of Norwegian writers before and after 1814, respectively. Pettersen had also commenced on the fifth and the sixth volume of the bibliography before his retirement in 1926, but these were never finished, owing to his death in 1928. Every volume also has an English title, even though the bibliography was published in Christiania, Norway.

Hjalmar Pettersen was born in Christiania in 1856. He graduated with a cand.philol. degree in philosophy in 1882, and was employed by the University Library of Oslo in 1885. In 1898, Pettersen succeeded Jens Braage Halvorsen as chief librarian of the national department of the University Library. He started working with the Bibliotheca Norvegica immediately, in which he registered every work himself.

The first volume in the bibliography is titled Norsk boglexikon 1643–1813. This volume is a catalogue of books published in Norway from 1643 to 1814, when the Constitution of Norway was first adopted. The volume is separated into two parts: one for the "real" book printings and one for the "poems of idleness". Every work in the volume is sorted alphabetically by author and chronologically by year of publication when part of one author's bibliography. It is the only volume of Bibliotheca Norvegica in which bibliographical entries are sorted alphabetically. It consists of 684 pages and was published in Christiania between 1899 and 1908. Pettersen's biographer in Norsk biografisk leksikon classifies this volume as Pettersen's "large contribution to the bibliography of Norway".

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