Henrick Ibsen's Brand (1866), written the year before Peer Gynt, is also written in epic verse. Brand is the first of Ibsen's works to achieve both critical and popular attention. This work explores the inhumanity of uncompromising idealism.

Edmund Spenser's The Fairie Queene (1590) is an early verse epic that includes allegorical characters and a fairytale-like motif to explore the meaning of truth.

Orlando Furioso (1532), by Ariosto, is a verse epic that includes love, war, and honor and focuses on man's responsibility to fulfill his duty.

Norwegian Folk Tales: From the Collection of Peter Christian Asbjornsen, Jorgen Moe (reprint 1982), by Peter Christen Asbjorsen, etal., is a collection of fairy tales in contemporary translation. Asbjornsen's stories were the source material for much of Peer Gynt.

Peter Christen Asbjornsen's East of the Sun and West of the Moon: TwentyOne Norwegian Folk Tales (reprint 1990) is a collection of folktales; many, if not all, would have been familiar in Ibsen's world.

Favorite Folktales From Around the World (1988), by Jane Yolen, is a collection of more than 160 folk tales from over 40 different cultures and traditions.