The Emigrants

Considered one of Sweden’s greatest 20th-century writers, Vilhelm Moberg created the characters Karl Oskar and Kristina Nilsson to portray the joys and tragedies of daily life for early Swedish immigrants 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 enabled him to incorporate many details of pioneer life. First published between 1949 and 1959 in Swedish, these four books were considered a single work by Moberg, who intended that they be read as documentary novels. These reprint editions contain introductions written by Roger McKnight of Gustavus Adolphus College, and they restore Moberg’s bibliography not included in earlier English editions.

The first book in the series,  The Emigrants  introduces Karl Oskar and Kristina Nilsson, their three young children, and eleven others who make up a resolute party of Swedes fleeing the poverty, religious persecution, and social oppression of Småland in 1850.

The other books in the series— Unto a Good Land  (I),  Unto a Good Land  (II), and  The Last Letter Home  (IV)—are also available from the Minnesota Historical Society Press.