The Wonderful Adventures of Nils by Selma Lagerlöf (i can read book club TXT) 📕

The Wonderful Adventures of Nils

By Selma Lagerlöf.

Translated by Velma Swanston Howard.

Table of Contents Titlepage Imprint Introduction The Wonderful Adventures of Nils The Boy The Elf The Wild Geese The Big Checked Cloth Akka from Kebnekaise Evening Night Goose-Play The Wonderful Journey of Nils On the Farm Vittskövle In Övid Cloister Park Glimminge Castle Black Rats and Gray Rats The Stork The Rat Charmer The Great Crane Dance on Kullaberg In Rainy Weather The Stairway with the Three Steps By Ronneby River Karlskrona The Trip to Öland Öland’s Southern Point The Big Butterfly Little Karl’s Island The Storm The Sheep Hell’s Hole Two Cities The City at the Bottom of the Sea The Living City The Legend of Småland The Crows The Earthen Crock Kidnapped by Crows The Cabin The Old Peasant Woman From Taberg to Huskvarna The Big Bird Lake Jarro, the Wild Duck The Decoy-Duck The Lowering of the Lake Ulvåsa-Lady The Prophecy The Homespun Cloth The Story of Karr and Grayskin Karr Grayskin’s Flight Helpless, the Water-Snake The Nun Moths The Big War of the Moths Retribution The Wind Witch In Närke Market Eve The Breaking Up of the Ice Thumbietot and the Bears The Ironworks The Flood The Swans The New Watchdog Dunfin The City That Floats on the Water The Sisters Stockholm Skansen Gorgo, the Eagle In the Mountain Glen In Captivity On Over Gästrikland The Precious Girdle Forest Day A Day in Hälsingland A Large Green Leaf The Animals’ New Year’s Eve In Medelpad A Morning in Ångermanland The Bread The Forest Fire Westbottom and Lapland The Five Scouts The Moving Landscape The Meeting Osa, the Goose Girl, and Little Mats With the Laplanders The Next Morning Homeward Bound! The First Travelling Day Legends from Härjedalen Vermland and Dalsland A Little Homestead The Treasure on the Island On Their Way to the Sea The Gift of the Wild Geese The Journey to Vemminghög Home at Last The Parting with the Wild Geese Endnotes Colophon Uncopyright Imprint

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Introduction

This book, which is the latest work of Sweden’s greatest fiction writer, was published in Stockholm, December, 1906. It became immediately the most popular book of the year in Scandinavia.

Four years ago the author received a commission from the National Teachers’ Association to write a reader for the public schools.

She devoted three years to Nature study and to familiarising herself with animal and bird life. She sought out hitherto unpublished folklore and legends of the different provinces. These she has ingeniously woven into her story.

The book has been translated into German and Danish, and the book reviewers of Germany and Denmark, as well as those of Sweden, are unanimous in proclaiming this Selma Lagerlöf’s best work.

One reviewer has said: “Since the days of Hans Christian Andersen, we have had nothing in Scandinavian juvenile literature to compare with this remarkable book.” Another reviewer wrote: “Miss Lagerlöf has the keen insight into animal psychology of a Rudyard Kipling.”

Stockholm’s Dagblad said among other things: “The great author stands as it were in the background. The prophetess is forgotten for the voices that speak through her. It is as though the book had sprung direct from the soul of the Swedish nation.”

Sydsvenska Dagbladet writes: “The significant thing about this book is: while one follows with breathless interest the shifting scenes and adventures, one learns many things without being conscious of it.⁠ ⁠… The author’s imagination unfolds an almost inexhaustible wealth in invention of new, and ever-changing adventures, told in such a convincing way that we almost believe them. As amusement reading for the young, this book is a decided acquisition. The intimate blending of fiction and fact is so subtle that one finds it hard to distinguish where one ends, and the other begins. It is a classic⁠ ⁠… A masterwork.”

From Gefle Posten: “The author is here⁠—as always, the great storyteller, the greatest, perhaps, in Scandinavian literature since the days of Hans Christian Andersen. To children whose imaginations have been fostered by Ashbjørnsen, Andersen, and Thousand-and-One Nights, Nils Holgersson will always be precious, as well as to those of us who are older.”

From Göteborg Posten: “Selma Lagerlöf has given us a good lift onward. She is the one whom we, in these days, place first and foremost⁠ ⁠… Among the other work which she has done for us, and for our children, she has recreated our geography for us⁠ ⁠… Upon imagination’s road she has sought to open the child-heart to an understanding of animals, while she tactfully and playfully drops into little knowledge-thirsty minds a comprehensive understanding of the habits and characteristics of different animals. She carries us with her⁠ ⁠… and shapes for us⁠—old and young⁠—a new childhood in tune with the thought of our time. What does she not touch upon in this wonderful book?⁠ ⁠… As Mowgli, who had the key to all the languages of the Jungle, once found his way to all his little brother