Jacobine Camilla Collett (née Wergeland) (23 January 1813 – 6 March 1895) was a Norwegian writer, often referred to as the first Norwegian feminist. She was also the younger sister of Norwegian poet Henrik Wergeland, and is recognized as being one of the first contributors to realism in Norwegian literature. Her younger brother was Major General Joseph Frantz Oscar Wergeland.

Camilla was born in Kristiansand, Norway, the daughter of Nicolai Wergeland, a noted theologian, politician, and composer in his time, and Alette née Thaulow. Her brother, was the writer Henrik Wergeland. When Camilla was four, her family moved to Eidsvoll, where her father was made parish priest. Camilla grew up in a literary family, and she became a young diarist, in part because she found life in Eidsvoll dull. She spent most of her teens at a finishing school in Christiansfeld in Denmark.

During a visit to Kristiania she met and fell in love with the poet Johan Sebastian Welhaven, who was also her brother Henrik's literary nemesis. Relations between the three were complicated and in time became legendary in Norwegian Romanticism. Collett was philosophically aligned with the Welhaven side of the debate, and her relationship with her brother may have been uneasy for some time. But there are indications that Camilla carried some resentment toward her father and brother over their opposition to her relationship with Welhaven.^{[citation needed]} She also suffered from health problems during, and in the summer of 1834 her father took her to Paris to regain strength and recover from her health issues.

Henrik Arnold Thaulow Wergeland (17 June 1808 – 12 July 1845) was a Norwegian writer, most celebrated for his poetry but also a prolific playwright, polemicist, historian, and linguist. He is often described as a leading pioneer in the development of a distinctly Norwegian literary heritage and of modern Norwegian culture.

Though Wergeland only lived to be 37, his range of pursuits covered literature, theology, history, contemporary politics, social issues, and science. His views were controversial in his time, and his literary style was variously denounced as subversive.

He was the oldest son of Nicolai Wergeland (1780–1848), who had been a member of the constituent assembly at Eidsvoll in 1814. The father was himself pastor of Eidsvold and the poet was thus brought up in the very holy of holies of Norwegian patriotism. Wergeland's younger sister was Camilla Collett and younger brother major general Joseph Frantz Oscar Wergeland. His father was the son of a bellringer from Sogn, and Wergeland's paternal ancestry is mostly farmers from Hordaland, Sogn and Sunnmøre. On his mother's side, he descended from both Danes and Scots. His great-grandfather, Andrew Chrystie (1697–1760), was born in Dunbar, and belonged to the Scottish Clan Christie. This Andrew migrated in 1717 to Brevik in Norway, moved on to Moss and was married a second time to a Scottish woman, Marjorie Lawrie (1712–1784). Their daughter Jacobine Chrystie (1746–1818) was married to the town clerk of Kristiansand Henrik Arnold Thaulow (1722–1799), father of Wergeland's mother Alette Thaulow (1780–1843). Wergeland got his first name from the elder Henrik Arnold.