Henrik Ibsen's Brand (1866), written a year before Peer Gynt, is also composed in epic verse. Brand marks the first of Ibsen's works to garner both critical and popular acclaim. This piece delves into the harshness of unyielding idealism.

Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene (1590) is an early verse epic featuring allegorical characters and a fairytale-like motif to examine the essence of truth.

Orlando Furioso (1532), by Ariosto, is a verse epic that encompasses themes of love, war, and honor, focusing on man's duty to uphold his responsibilities.

Norwegian Folk Tales: From the Collection of Peter Christian Asbjørnsen, Jørgen Moe (reprint 1982), by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, et al., is a compilation of fairy tales in modern translation. Asbjørnsen's stories provided much of the source material for Peer Gynt.

Peter Christen Asbjørnsen's East of the Sun and West of the Moon: Twenty-One Norwegian Folk Tales (reprint 1990) is another collection of folktales; many, if not all, would have been well-known in Ibsen's time.

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