The Treasure

Lagerlöf, Selma, 1858-1940Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.7
Word count
129K words
Chapters
13

Tags

English Originals Foreign Literature Legendary LivesFate and FortuneHuman NatureMoral DilemmaHeartwarming NarrativeSwedish Literature

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.The Treasure by Selma LagerlöfAuthor: Lagerlöf, Selma, 1858-1940,Language: English, Class: PT: Language and Literatures: Germanic, Scandinavian, and Icelandic literatures, Release Date: Feb 1, 2004

Editor's review

The Treasure is a narrative work by Selma Lagerlöf, best known for The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, whose writing often blends folk legend, moral fable, and Nordic landscape. This book likewise has a strong legendary quality, built around the central image of "treasure," with characters torn between greed, promise, and redemption; the narrative is spare and fable-like. Unlike adventure fiction that relies on plot excitement, it is closer to a short literary work with the feel of a folk tale, suited to slow reading in a quiet setting to appreciate its symbolic meaning and portrayal of human nature. As a public-domain ebook, it is of manageable length and works as supplementary reading for understanding Lagerlöf's narrative style. Readers expecting tight reasoning or密集 plot twists may find its pace slow; those who enjoy fable-like stories and a Nordic literary atmosphere will have a good reading experience.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. First understand what "treasure" symbolizes in the story, then enter the specific plot.
  2. Read slowly, paragraph by paragraph, noting how characters' choices shift between greed and morality.
  3. After finishing, summarize the story's meaning in a few sentences to check whether you have grasped the main thread.
  4. Read it alongside other folk-tale adaptations to appreciate the narrative differences.

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

FAQ

Is this book similar in style to The Wonderful Adventures of Nils? Both share Lagerlöf's folk-legend quality and moral-fable coloring, but The Treasure is shorter and more tightly structured, built around symbolic narrative centered on "treasure." If you like the Nordic atmosphere and fable-like style of The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, this book works as a stylistic extension.
Is the English original hard to read? This is an English public-domain ebook. The narrative is relatively spare and the sentences are not very difficult, but it has a literary and fable-like quality, and some expressions need to be understood from context. Readers with some grounding in English can read it slowly chapter by chapter, grasping the general meaning of unfamiliar words first and returning to details later.
Is this book suitable as material for a book club discussion? Yes. The story revolves around treasure, greed, and moral choice, with clear symbolic meaning and manageable length, so book club members can finish it in one or two sessions and discuss character motives, the fable's meaning, and narrative technique.

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About the author

Lagerlöf, Selma, 1858-1940 Author

Selma Lagerlöf (1858–1940) was a Swedish writer whose work is distinguished by a rich imagination and a gift for reworking folk legend. The library holds 32 of her works, including The Story of Gösta Berling and The Wonderful Adventures of Nils. The former draws on tales of old Värmland and follows the joys and sorrows of a band of wandering characters in a romantic, legendary vein; the latter, through the journey of the boy Nils flying across Sweden with wild geese, blends geography, animals and folk tales into a classic of world children's literature. Works such as Christ Legends and Jerusalem further show her abiding concern with faith, rural life and human nature. Her style combines epic sweep with fairy-tale lightness, and her coming-of-age stories in particular appeal to young readers. Public information is limited; this introduction rests only on the library's holdings and widely accepted literary knowledge.