A Manor House Tale
Published on 1. September 2015
Book
Paperback/Softback
140 pages
978-1-909408-25-8 (ISBN)
Description
Written in 1899, Selma Lagerlof's novella A Manor House Tale is at one and the same time a complex psychological novel and a folk tale, a love story and a Gothic melodrama. It crosses genre boundaries and locates itself in a borderland between reality and fantasy, madness and sanity, darkness and light, possession and loss, life and death. Lagerlof's two young characters, Gunnar and Ingrid, the one driven to madness by the horrific death of his goats in a blizzard, the other falling into a death-like trance as a result of the absence of familial warmth, rescue each other from their psychological underworlds and return to an everyday world that is now enhanced by the victory of goodness and love. Selma Lagerlof (1858-1940) quickly established herself as a major author of novels and short stories, and her work has been translated into close to 50 languages. Most of the translations into English were made soon after the publication of the original Swedish texts and have long been out of date. This Norvik Press series, 'Lagerlof in English', provides English-language readers with high-quality new translations of a selection of the Nobel Laureate's most important texts.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 8 mm
Weight
157 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-909408-25-8 (9781909408258)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Selma Lagerlof (1858-1940) was born on a farm in Varmland, trained as a teacher and became, in her life-time, Sweden's most widely translated author ever. Novels such as Gosta Berlings saga (1891; Gosta Berling's Saga) and Jerusalem (1901-02) helped regenerate Swedish literature, and the school reader, Nils Holgersson's Wonderful Journey through Sweden (1906-07), has achieved enduring international fame and popularity. Two very different trilogies, the Lowenskold trilogy (1925-28) and the Marbacka trilogy (1922-32), the latter often taken to be autobiographical, give some idea of the range and power of Lagerlof's writing. Several of her texts inspired innovative films, among them Herr Arnes pengar (Sir Arne's Treasure), directed by Mauritz Stiller (1919) and based on Herr Arnes penningar (1903; Lord Arne's Silver), and Korkarlen (The Phantom Carriage), directed by Victor Sjostrom (1921) and based on Lagerlof's Korkarlen (1912). She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, as the first woman ever, in 1909, and elected to the Swedish Academy, again as the first woman, in 1914. Having been able to buy back the farm of Marbacka, which her family had lost as the result of bankruptcy, Lagerlof spent the last three decades of her life combining her writing with the responsibilities for running a sizeable estate. Her work has been translated into close to 50 languages.