Please find link to a Chapter from Edvard Beyer's book, "Ibsen: The Man and his Work" (1878) on the historical situation in Norway in the 19th Century. The Background sketch is relevant also for the study of Hamsun's Hunger (1890) as well as for Ibsen's Hedda Gabler (1890):
Exerpt from Ibsen, the Man and his Work