The People and Their Kings: Stories for Young and Old to Read

Heidenstam, Verner von, 1859-1940Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.0
Word count
522K words
Chapters
53

Tags

Foreign Language Books History Books Adventure JourneyFate and FortunePower GameRoyal SuccessionViking LegendHeroic EpicHistorical NarrativeNordic SettingPopular ReadingYouth Reading

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Kansa ja sen kuninkaat: Kertomuksia nuorten ja vanhain luettavaksi by HeidenstamAuthor: Heidenstam, Verner von, 1859-1940,Language: Finnish, Class: DL: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Northern Europe, Scandinavia, Release Date: Apr 23, 2016

Editor's review

This Finnish-language history book comes from the Swedish author and Nobel laureate Verner von Heidenstam, who tells the story of Sweden's kings and nation in narrative form. The subtitle, "Stories for the young and the old to read," signals that it is not a dry academic treatise but a collection of historical stories for general readers, combining literary quality with instruction. Heidenstam is known for his prose and historical imagination, and this book works well as an introduction to Nordic history and the Swedish monarchical tradition, as well as material for language learners encountering Finnish narrative texts. Because it is a public-domain ebook, this is the free Project Gutenberg edition; the barrier to reading lies in the language, not the price. Readers can read it in sections on a commute or before bed, treating each king's story as a standalone chapter and using a Nordic historical timeline to follow the thread. Note that the book reflects the literary treatment of the author's era and should not be cited as strict historical source material.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Start with the table of contents and choose chapters by king or theme rather than reading straight through.
  2. Keep a Swedish historical timeline or map at hand to place people and events as you read.
  3. Finnish learners can read a short section each day, noting character descriptions and narrative sentence patterns.
  4. After finishing, pick the story that struck you most and retell it in your own words to check your understanding.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53

FAQ

Is this book an academic history? No. It is a collection of historical stories for young people and general readers, narrating Swedish kings and the nation in literary form. It suits introductory and leisure reading and should not be cited as rigorous source material; verify specific historical facts against specialist histories.
Can I read this book without knowing Finnish? The original is in Finnish, so reading it directly is difficult without Finnish. You can use translation tools for support or compare with editions in other languages; if your goal is to understand the content rather than study the language, choose a version in a language you can read.
Why does the subtitle say it is for the young and the old to read? The subtitle shows the author wanted the stories to cross generations, offering young readers an introduction to history and letting older readers revisit national memory. The narrative does not depend on technical terms and the chapters stand relatively independently, so general readers of different ages can pick what interests them.
Where does the ebook come from, and is it easy to read? This edition is published by Project Gutenberg as a free public-domain ebook available on its website. The layout is mainly plain text, suitable for reading on a computer, e-reader, or phone, and you can print it yourself, but it lacks modern notes, maps, and other supplementary material.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Heidenstam, Verner von, 1859-1940 Author

Heidenstam, Verner von (1859–1940) was a Swedish writer and the winner of the 1916 Nobel Prize in Literature. The library holds four of his works, including Karoliinit: Kertomuksia, Kansa ja sen kuninkaat: Kertomuksia nuorten ja vanhain luettavaksi, Pyhän Birgitan vaellus, and Folkungaträdet. These works are mostly historical narrative prose and story collections intended for both young and adult readers, combining historical imagination with literary appeal. Among them, Folkungaträdet is one of his major novels, set against Swedish medieval history. Because the available material is limited, details of his life, education, and official positions are not covered here; this introduction focuses on the themes and direction of his writing, which has had a certain influence on Swedish national historical narrative and literary tradition.