The Wonderful Adventures of Nils

A Boy Shrunk to Elf-Size Flies Over Sweden

Selma Lagerlöf, Velma Swanston Howard

• Publisher: Aeneas Press
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9785486494529
• Subtopic: Classics
• Index: Literature

A farm boy who torments animals is shrunk to the size of a thumb by an elf and carried the length of Sweden on the back of a goose, learning the country province by province. Lagerlöf was commissioned to write a geography reader for schools and produced a novel instead; she took the Nobel Prize three years later, the first woman to do so. The lesson is delivered, but what the book is remembered for is the flight. Fifty-four plates of painting, from Caspar David Friedrich's meadows to Carl d'Unker's Palais Royal, follow the flight through northern light and harvest fields.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• The Wonderful Adventures of Nils
• 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
• 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 Watch-Dog
• 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
• He Had Arrived!
• 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
• Table of Pronunciation
• About the Author