[3] Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf was born on 20 November 1858 at Mårbacka,[4] Värmland, Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway.

Growing up, she was plain and slightly lame, and an account stated that the cross-country wanderings of Margarethe and Elisabet in Gösta Berling's Saga could be the author's compensatory fantasies.

[13] Through her studies at the Royal Women's Superior Training Academy in Stockholm, Lagerlöf reacted against the realism of contemporary Swedish-language writers such as August Strindberg.

Her first break as a writer came when she submitted the first chapters to a literary contest in the magazine Idun, and won a publishing contract for the whole book.

[16] The royal family and the Swedish Academy gave her substantial financial support to continue her passion.

[17] Jerusalem was also acclaimed by critics, who began comparing her to Homer and Shakespeare, so that she became a popular figure both in Sweden and abroad.

With the help of proceeds from Gösta Berling's Saga and a scholarship and grant, she made two journeys, which were largely instrumental in providing material for her next novel.

[18][19] In Italy, a legend of a Christ Child figure that had been replaced with a false version inspired Lagerlöf's novel Antikrists mirakler (The Miracles of the Antichrist).

[20] In 1902, Lagerlöf was asked by the National Teachers' Association to write a geography book for children.

Lagerlöf mixed historical and geographical facts about the provinces of Sweden with the tale of the boy's adventures, detailing how he managed to return home and was restored to his normal size.

Selma's letters to Sophie were published in 1993, titled Du lär mig att bli fri ('You Teach me to be Free').

[14] Beginning in the 1900s, she also had a close relationship with Valborg Olander, who had some influence as a literary adviser, agent and secretary of sorts as well; their correspondence was published in 2006 as En riktig författarhustru ('A Proper Writer's Wife').

Still, it is primarily the surviving correspondence with Olander that contains passages implying decidedly erotic and physical passion, even though Lagerlöf took care to destroy many of the letters she found too risky.

[27] Sjöström's retelling of Lagerlöf's tales about rural Swedish life, in which his camera recorded the detail of traditional village life and the Swedish landscape, provided the basis of some of the most poetic and memorable products of silent cinema.

[28] On 10 December 1909,[29] Selma Lagerlöf won the Nobel Prize "in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination, and spiritual perception that characterize her writings",[30] but the decision was preceded by harsh internal power struggle within the Swedish Academy, the body that awards the Nobel Prize in literature.