Gösta Berlings saga is the debut novel of Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf, published in 1891. In Gösta Berling, Lagerlöf is a romanticist and represents a reaction against the realism which prevailed at the time. It has been called the “prose epic of Swedish country life.” The hero, Gösta Berling, is a deposed minister, who has been saved by the Mistress of Ekeby from freezing to death and thereupon becomes one of her pensioners in the manor at Ekeby. As the pensioners finally get power in their own hands, they manage the property as they themselves see fit, and their lives are filled with many wild adventures, Gösta Berling is the leading spirit, the poet, the charming personality among a band of revelers.