Considered one of Sweden's greatest 20th-century writers, Vilhelm Moberg created Karl Oskar and Kristina Nilsson to portray the joys and tragedies of daily life for early Swedish pioneers in America. His consistently faithful depiction of these humble people's lives is a major strength of the Emigrant Novels.

Moberg's extensive research in the papers of Swedish emigrants in archival collections, including the Minnesota Historical Society, enabled him to incorporate many details of pioneer life. First published between 1949 and 1959 in Swedish, these four books were considered a...

At the beginning of the twentieth century, in the poverty-stricken Swedish region of Smaland, young Valter, the son of a soldier, explores the world around him and watches his older brothers emigrate to America. In this novel of the life of a farm boy, first published in three volumes in 1946, Vilhelm Moberg sensitively explores his own childhood.

When Valter, a boy with great imagination, describes the exciting things he sees so vividly, he is punished for lying, so he learns to write his stories down instead. He willingly leaves school and helps support his family by working in...

For centuries, people have celebrated every Midsummer's Eve at an ancient spring near a small Swedish village. On that special night, when unmarried men and women dance and some unusual activities are permitted, the Bridal Spring has special powers.

Vilhelm Moberg introduces four musicians on the last day that each one will ever know: a curmudgeonly fiddler from the 1930s, a sad and conscientious key-harp player from the plague era of 1711, a ne'er-do-well who plays the flute in 1545, and a goat-horn blower from prehistoric times who, like the others, only seeks happiness with a...