Abstract Malthus visited Norway in 1799 and his impression of the country's demographic experience was important in determining the character of the second edition of his Essay on the Principle of Population. He relied for the most part on non-statistical sources. This led him to exaggerate, e.g. the size of households, the number of unmarried farm servants and to miss important features, e.g. differences in marital age patterns, regional variations in fertility and nuptiality. The bias of his itinerary and of his main informants is also apparent. Statistical material not available to Malthus indicates that he was right to stress the late age at marriage in Norway but wrong to ignore the operation of the positive check. Mortality was frequently high in late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Norway, much higher than Malthus ever realized. This destroys the symmetry, as well as the morality, of Malthus's exposition.