Selma Lagerlöf was born into a once prosperous Varmland family that, like most families in the district, fell on bad times. Although circumstances were straitened and the fear of poverty was a constant presence, memories of better times in the recent past were still vivid and carefully preserved as part of the family lore that Lagerlöf absorbed in anecdotes as she was growing up. In many ways, The Story of Gösta Berling reflects this background. The novel’s characters and scenes, drawn from rural Swedish life, are reminiscent of Anton Chekhov’s treatment of similar material dealing with life in rural Russia. The loss of ancestral estates, for example, strongly affects the plot development in The Story of Gösta Berling as it does in Chekhov’s Vishnyovy sad (1904; The Cherry Orchard, 1908) just as upper-middle-class decadence seems to direct the course of events both in Lagerlöf’s novel and in Chekhov’s Tri sestry (1901; The Three Sisters, 1920). Other parallels can be drawn with Lagerlöf’s depiction of the deterioration of a comfortable way of life and the generous hospitality that accompanies it. So, too, does the psychology of fear—suspicion of being exploited when the security of property is lost—find Chekhovian echoes. These factors most particularly shape Lagerlöf’s portrayal of the pensioners in her novel.

The Story of Gösta Berling was Lagerlöf’s first and most famous novel, but it is not unique in her output, for which she won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1909—the first woman and the first Swede to be so honored. Her later novels and tales—including Antikrists mirakler (1897; The Miracles of Antichrist, 1899), Jerusalem I: I Dalarne (1901; Jerusalem, 1915), Jerusalem II: I det heliga landet (1902; The Holy City: Jerusalem II, 1918), and Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige (1906-1907; The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, 1907, and The Further Adventures of Nils, 1911) especially—also show the same concerns with the failure of the social system, the plight of the peasant, the corruption of people in positions of authority, and the eternal verities of folk wisdom. The last aspect of Lagerlöf’s novels is one of her strongest and most unusual points. The folkloric qualities, expressed through supernatural elements and a great sensitivity toward nature, combine romanticism with shrewd sociopolitical insight. In The Story of Gösta Berling Lagerlöf’s powerful imagination creates a happily reckless amalgam of unlikely, even contradictory, attitudes.

Despite apparently disparate elements in the novel, Gösta himself is the unifying force, even though in some respects he is not a credible protagonist. Lagerlöf, who seems unaware of his imperfections, observed a number of conventional taboos—mostly dealing with sex, religion, and politics—that obscured the realities of life around her and blocked her ability to deal creatively with such matters in her novels. As a result, Lagerlöf overlooked contradictions in the substantive development of her novel in pursuing situations she wanted to see occur or that she was trained, by her background, to expect. The novel must therefore be accepted on its own unconventional terms.

In Lagerlöf’s time, conventional terms meant the naturalism of Émile Zola and August Strindberg. Lagerlöf chose instead to follow the timeless old truths of ancient tales and archetypal myths. Such utter indifference to contemporaneity made Lagerlöf an anomaly, but the compelling power of her art elevated her work to a level that gained her a position of respect in the literary world. Without bowing to literary fashion, she wrote a first novel that has ever since captured the attention of readers. In this work, Lagerlöf commanded a theme that is of enduring interest: Can one have fun...