Maurits Christopher Hansen (5 July 1794 – 16 March 1842) was a Norwegian writer recognized for his contribution to a diversity of genres and the introduction of the novel in Norway. He was a major contributor to the Norwegian Romantic Movement. He also wrote what was arguably the world's first crime novel with "Mordet på Maskinbygger Rolfsen" ("The Murder of Engine Maker Rolfsen") in 1839, two years before Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" in 1841.
He was born in Modum. He worked as a teacher in Trondhjem from 1820 and in Kongsberg from 1826. He was a member of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters in Trondhjem, but was not appointed when he applied for a position as lecturer of philosophy at the University of Christiania around 1839.[1]