Background
Selma Lagerlöf was born on November 20, 1858, on the estate Mårbacka in Värmland. In 1884 her father's illness forced the sale of the home, an event which would continue to affect her.
(In this illustrated edition of the classic Swedish folk t...)
In this illustrated edition of the classic Swedish folk tale, Nils is shrunk to a tiny size by a dwarf, and carried across Sweden by a flock of wild geese to their summer home in the far North. Through many perils and exciting adventures, Nils wins the respect and love of the geese and finally returns home. (Ages 5-9)
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("From a Swedish Homestead" by the Swedish author Selma La...)
"From a Swedish Homestead" by the Swedish author Selma Lagerloef is a collection of stories and legends, taking in Sweden, Kungahalla on the west-coast at the time between Heathendom and early Christianity and some from Italy and Belgium. The first story, the short Novel The Story of a Country House, is the story of how a young orphan girl, Ingrid, who becomes the instrument of saving the student Gunnar Hede, who has lost his wits and memory by a terrible experience. As told by the author herself "it is a both fascinating and sweet story, as are all the others."
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(The first new English translation in more than one hundre...)
The first new English translation in more than one hundred years of the Swedish Gone with the Wind In 1909, Selma Lagerlöf became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Saga of Gösta Berling is her first and best-loved noveland the basis for the 1924 silent film of the same name that launched Greta Garbo into stardom. A defrocked minister, Gösta Berling finds a home at Ekeby, an ironworks estate that also houses and assortment of eccentric veterans of the Napoleanic Wars. His defiant and poetic spirit proves magnetic to a string of women, who fall under his spell in this sweeping historical epic set against the backdrop of the magnificent wintry beauty of rural Sweden. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,800 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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( This is the Jerusalem of soul-hunting, this is the Jer...)
This is the Jerusalem of soul-hunting, this is the Jerusalem of evil-speaking, this is the Jerusalem of lies, of slander, of jeers. Here one persecutes untiringly; here one murders without weapons. It is this Jerusalem which kills men. JERUSALEM by Selma Lagerlöf, first woman author to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, is a story of Swedish families caught up in desire and divine exultation. Homestead tradition and religious inspiration, love and duty, come in conflict in this inspirational and gently bittersweet period novel that follows a pilgrimage of the idealist human spirit of Ingmar Ingmarsson and his kin. Her second great novel, and by most of her followers acknowledged to be her greatest work. Of this book one critic has said: Herein she has caught the spirit of the romance and the religious fanaticism of the people and has woven a strange, original love-story around these heroes and heroines of the simple life. The volume closes with the renunciation of home and friends by these religious enthusiasts, and starts them on their pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Thus in the story she takes us to the very soul of these serious, plodding peasants beneath whose stolid appearance slumbers such depth of emotion. She makes her readers acquainted with a race who ask themselves, Is it right? rather than Is it pleasant?; who seek the cause of duty rather than the cause of self-advancement. And we see a people who look on very much talk as a vice and who judge a man by his thoughts rather than by his words. -The Book News Monthly, Volume 34, 1915 It has been called the epic of the Swedish peasant, and portrays with marvelous intuition the religion and superstition, the sense of spiritual mystery coupled with yearning and pious awe, so characteristic of the Swedish country folk. -Current Opinion, Volume 48, 1910 A deeply evocative picture of Victorian Jerusalem, what Lagerlöf wrote about has deep resonance today.
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(The stories of Jesus' birth and childhood are well known,...)
The stories of Jesus' birth and childhood are well known, but Selma Lagerlöf brings them truly to life in this wonderful collection of tales for children. Her storytelling draws vividly on the colorful history and landscape of the Holy Land. She weaves in a cast of lively characters whose experiences and points of view are not usually represented: a war-hardened soldier at Herod's feast, a grumpy shepherd, Emperor Tiberius himself. Together they proclaim the human drama and divine mystery of the events of Christ's life. Previously published as The Emperor's Vision. (Ages 7-12) Table of Contents • The Holy Night • The Emperor's Vision • The Wise Men's Well • Bethlehem's Children • The Flight into Egypt • In Nazareth • In the Temple • Saint Veronica • Robin Redbreast • Our Lord and Saint Peter • The Sacred Flame • The Christmas Rose
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(Review excerpts from The Book Review Digest, Volume 7, 19...)
Review excerpts from The Book Review Digest, Volume 7, 1911: "A second Installment of the adventures of Nils. Miss Lagerlöf's idealism permeates the atmosphere of a world that she creates for her children, animals and flowers. All three have thoughts in common and a language in common. Her stories, as entertaining as the tales of Andersen, are especially valuable from the standpoint of animal psychology, so scientific is she in reconstructing the animal consciousness." "Delightful stories freshly and vividly imagined. A knowledge of the earlier book will enhance the full enjoyment of the present work." "Miss Lagerlöf's writing is as clear as a bible narrative."
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(Translated from the Swedish by Velma Swanston Howard.)
Translated from the Swedish by Velma Swanston Howard.
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Selma Lagerlöf was born on November 20, 1858, on the estate Mårbacka in Värmland. In 1884 her father's illness forced the sale of the home, an event which would continue to affect her.
Lagerlöf was educated at the Högre lärarinneseminariet in Stockholm from 1882 to 1885.
She worked as a country schoolteacher for nearly 10 years, struggling at the same time to find a form in which to retell the legends she had heard as a child. She finally wrote them in her own way, ignoring the time's demand for realism, and published them as Gösta Berling's Saga in 1891. This work, set in a brilliantly evoked Värmland landscape, is a series of melodramatic, often fantastic stories organized around Gösta Berling, a despairing, defrocked minister. It is marked by vivid realism of description but also shows the influence of romanticism, the Bible, and Thomas Carlyle. The Saga is an independent contribution to the "neoromantic" reaction of the 18906 against naturalism. It further departs from naturalism-as does most of her work-in its emphasis upon personal responsibility and its undogmatic, earthy Christianity. The book was not a critical success until it was warmly reviewed by Georg Brandes, the man most responsible for the literary fashions Lagerlöf defied. Gradually it has become a world classic. Lagerlöf's second masterpiece is the two-volume novel Jerusalem (1901 - 1902), based on the true story of a group of Swedish peasants who, seized by religious fervor, sold their farms and went to the Holy Land to devote their lives to good works. The first volume is the more successful, evoking the shattering experience of a people who abandon their homes and traditions for the unknown. Her third masterpiece is The Wonderful Adventures of Nils (1906 - 1907), written as a Swedish geography for children, one of the world's most popular children's books. From the turn of the century on, Lagerlöf's literary output was impressive, both in quantity and quality, and her fame grew steadily until she became Sweden's most famous writer. Of her other books available in translation, the following deserve mention. In The Miracles of Antichrist (1897) and Christ Legends and Legends (both 1904), folk material she collected is used to build her own stories, blending the real and the fantastic. Gripping psychological novels are The Tale of a Manor (1899) and The Emperor of Portugallia (1914). Also available are her three books of memoirs, autobiographical classics: Mårbacka (1922), Memories of My Childhood (1930), and The Diary of Selma Lagerlöf (1932). Lagerlöf won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1909 and used the money to buy back her beloved childhood home, Mårbacka, where she lived, wrote, and farmed from 1910 until her death on March 16, 1940.
She was the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize for literature. Two hotels are named after her in Östra Ämtervik in Sunne, and her home, Mårbacka, is preserved as a museum.
One of her stories, The Rattrap, was included as a part of the Indian Curriculum, for high school students.
("From a Swedish Homestead" by the Swedish author Selma La...)
(In this illustrated edition of the classic Swedish folk t...)
(The first new English translation in more than one hundre...)
(The stories of Jesus' birth and childhood are well known,...)
( This is the Jerusalem of soul-hunting, this is the Jer...)
(Review excerpts from The Book Review Digest, Volume 7, 19...)
(Translated from the Swedish by Velma Swanston Howard.)
Quotations:
"No one is able to enjoy such feast than the one who throws a party in his own mind. "
"For, so long as there are interesting books to read, it seems to me that neither I nor anyone else, for that matter, need be unhappy. "
"There is always a third possibility, as long as you have the ability to find it. "
"It is a strange thing to come home. While yet on the journey, you cannot at all realize how strange it will be. "
"Never repeat a rumor before you have verified it. And if it is true, hold your tongue all the more. "
"The ways of Providence cannot be reasoned out by the finite mind . .. I cannot fathom them, yet seeking to know them is the most satisfying thing in all the world. "
"It is often the case with the silent children about us, that they cherish a dream which they dare not talk about. "
"Young horses who cannot bear the whip or spur find life hard. At every smart they start forward and rush to their destruction, and when the way is stony and difficult, they know no better expedient than to overturn the cart and gallop madly away. "
