This four-volume set of Icelandic sagas with English translations was prepared between 1887 and 1894 by the celebrated Icelandic scholar Gudbrand Vigfusson (1827–89) and the foremost translator of the day, Sir George Webbe Dasent (1817–96). It includes Orkneyinga saga, a history of the jarls of Orkney from the late ninth century to about 1200, composed in Iceland around 1230 but preserved complete only in the fourteenth-century Flateyjarbók; and Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar, the life of the king of Norway from 1217 to 1263 and the principal source for Norwegian history over this period, in which Hákon's reign put an end to a long civil war. It was written soon after his death by the Icelandic chieftain and historian Sturla Þórðarson at the instigation of the king's son. Volume 1 contains Vigfusson's edition of Orkneyinga saga and two variants of Magnúss saga, the life of St Magnus of Orkney.
