The Treasure is an opposite fairy tale, presenting Prince Charming as he really is: an orphan girl is cleaning fish and foreseeing her life of poverty; a man well-dressed in seductive splendor woos her and offers her ... forever after. There is only one catch: she must betray her sister. Although Selma Lagerlof won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1909, her name is known in this country - if at all - as author of a children's book only. All her other works, including novels and feminist essays, have been unavailable in English for almost fifty years.

Included in this volume of Selma Lagerlof's short fiction are "The Spirit of Fasting and Petter Nord," "The Legend of the Bird's Nest," "The King's Grave," "The Outlaws," "The Legend of Reor," "Valdemar Atterdag," "Mamsell Fredrika," "The Romance of a Fisherman's Wife," "His Mother's Portrait," "A Fallen King," "A Christmas Guest," "Uncle Reuben," "Downie," and "Among the Climbing Roses."

THE MIRACLES OF ANTICHRIST was written following a trip of Selma Lagerlof's to Sicily. While there, she heard -- and was inspired by -- a Sicilian legend: "When Antichrist comes, he shall seem as Christ. There shall be great want, and Antichrist shall go from land to land and give bread to the poor. And he shall find many followers." Selma Lagerlof was the first woman and the first Swedish author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1909. She was considered one of Sweden's most beloved authors; the Swedish Academy declared that their recognition of her was "for reason of the noble...

-Say, Jan, have you never cared so much for somebody that your heart has been set athrobbing because of her?- asked the midwife. Jan could not deny that it. The novel was a success with critics and readers, newspaper reviewers said the novel was at the same level as LagerlOf's earlier novels GOsta Berling's Saga and the first part of Jerusalem.

Lagerlof was the first woman and the first Swedish author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1909. She was considered one of Sweden's most beloved authors; the Swedish Academy declared that their recognition of her was -for reason of the noble idealism, the wealth of imagination, the soulful quality of style, which characterize her works.-

-Jerusalem begins with the history of a wealthy and powerful farmer family, the Ingmarssons of Ingmar Farm, and develops to include the whole parish life with its varied farmer types, its pastor, schoolmaster, shopkeeper, and innkeeper. The romance portrays the religious revival introduced by a practical mystic from Chicago which leads many families to sell their ancestral homesteads and--in the last chapter of this volume--to emigrate in a body to the Holy Land.- -- Henry Goddard Leach

Nils is a young lad who likes nothing more than eating and sleeping. He is also a very mean little boy who likes to torment animals. One day he catches a tomte who turns Nils into a tomte, which leaves him shrunken and able to talk with animals, who are thrilled to see the boy reduced to their size and are angry and hungry for revenge.

Written in 1912, Selma Lagerlof's The Phantom Carriage is a powerful combination of ghost story and social realism, played out among the slums, in the transitional sphere between life and death. The vengeful and alcoholic David Holm is led to atonement and salvation by the love of a dying Salvation Army slum sister, who is under the guidance of the driver of the death-cart that gathers in the souls of the dying poor. Inspired by Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, The Phantom Carriage remained one of Lagerlof's own favorites.