Selma Lagerlöf was born on November 20, 1858, in Östra Emterwik, Värmland, Sweden, on her family's estate called Mårbacka. Lagerlöf lived on the family estate until her early twenties when she left home to attend teacher's college in Stockholm. After earning her credentials there, she became a teacher at a girls' school in Landskrona in 1885. Though she had been writing poetry since she was a child, she didn't publish any of her work until 1890, when she won a literary competition put on by a Swedish weekly publication. The publication published excerpts of what would be her debut novel, Gösta Berling's Saga, which was published in full in 1891.
Gösta Berling's Saga is considered by some...
