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literature. She has had a series of honors such as rarely have fallen to the lot of a womannovelist, the climax of which has been the winning of the Nobel prize.[C] This enrolls herin a small group of authors of cosmopolitan interest—writers who belong to the wholeworld. Yet she is a woman who aspires to no prominence. She is modest, retiring, andunconscious of self.No other Swedish writer of any period has so faithfully mirrored the soul of the Swedishpeople as has Selma Lagerlöf, nor has any other writer been so worshipped by her people.In her native province her work has sunk deep into the hearts of the people. The placesand characters she has described have become so intimately associated with her storiesand legends that the real names are constantly being confused with the fictitious ones shehas given them in her Wonderful Adventures of Nils and Gösta Berling. Everywhere inSweden one finds postal cards representing scenes from the Wonderful Adventures ofNils. This is an enchanting fairy story that may be compared to the fairy classics ofGrimm and of Hans Andersen. In it fact and fancy are delicately interwoven with thegeography and natural history of Sweden.Miss Lagerlöf's popularity is not confined exclusively to Scandinavian countries,however. In Germany, Russia, and Holland, she is more widely read than almost anyother foreign writer. In recent years, moreover, she has conquered France, and since thebestowal of the Nobel prize, she has become a world figure. It is since that event that shehas become known in America, though she is not yet read here so much as she deserves.