The encounter with Southern Europe meant a great deal to her she made friends within the circle of Scandinavian artists and writers in Rome. Undset's parents had had a close relationship with Rome, and, during her stay there, she followed in their footsteps. After short stops in Denmark and Germany, she continued to Italy, arriving in Rome in December 1909, where she remained for nine months. Having been granted a writer's scholarship, she set out on a lengthy journey in Europe. Undset's books sold well from the start, and, after the publication of her third book, she left her office job and prepared to live on her income as a writer. These books placed Undset apart from the incipient women's emancipation movement in Europe. The other tells of a woman who succeeds in saving both herself and her love from a serious matrimonial crisis, finally creating a secure family. The first is about a woman painter who, as a result of romantic crises, believes that she is wasting her life, and, in the end, commits suicide.

This realistic period culminated in the novels Jenny (1911) and Vaaren (Spring) (1914). Or, as she herself put it-in her typically curt and ironic manner-'the immoral kind' (of love). Her main subjects are women and their love.

They are stories of working people, of trivial family destinies, of the relationship between parents and children. Her contemporary novels of the period 1907–1918 are about the city and its inhabitants. During the years up to 1919, Undset published a number of novels set in contemporary Kristiania. It created a stir, and she found herself ranked as a promising young author in Norway. Thus, at the age of 25, Undset made her literary debut with a short realistic novel on adultery, set against a contemporary background. The title was Fru Marta Oulie, and the opening sentence (the words of the book's main character) scandalised readers: 'I have been unfaithful to my husband'. This book was also refused by the publishers at first but it was subsequently accepted.

She had put aside the Middle Ages and had instead produced a realistic description of a woman with a middle-class background in contemporary Kristiania. Nonetheless, two years later, she completed another manuscript, much less voluminous than the first at only 80 pages. It was turned down by the publishing house.

The manuscript, a historical novel set in medieval Denmark, was ready by the time she was 22. She was 16 years old when she made her first attempt at writing a novel set in the Nordic Middle Ages. While employed at office work, Undset wrote and studied.

Saga of saints sigrid undset