Unto a Good Land - (Emigrant Novels) by Vilhelm Moberg (Paperback)

About the Book

The second book in Moberg's classic Emigrant Novels series.

Book Synopsis

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 second book in the series, Unto a Good Land opens in the summer of 1850 as the emigrants disembark in New York City. Their journey to a new home in Minnesota Territory takes them by riverboat, steam wagon, Great Lakes steamship, and oxcart to Chisago County.

The other books in the series--The Emigrants (I), The Settlers (III), and The Last Letter Home (IV)--are also available from the Minnesota Historical Society Press.

Review Quotes

"A tribute to the unconquerability of the human spirit. This isn't a novel about pioneering; it is pioneering."

New York Times Book Review

"The portrait of Minnesota is authentic . . . and it brings home to you sharply once again that in this span of a lifetime the face of the past, the face that so many preceding generations would have recognized, has disappeared for good."

New York Herald Tribune Book Review

"Impressive not merely for its epical scope but for its deep understanding of the psychology of the immigrants."

Saturday Review

"The author himself might have been one of the emigrants, living every moment with them, suffering with them, but recording . . . what all-seeing eyes might have seen."

Chicago Tribune

"Solid, leisurely, and very readable."

New Yorker

"An earthy story, frank in detail, but highly recommended."

Library Journal

"An 'epic' told with a restraint and sincerity that command respect. . . . A work of rare distinction and one warmly to be recommended."

Catholic World

"It's important to have Moberg's Emigrant Novels available for another generation of readers."

Bruce Karstadt, American Swedish Institute