One hundred years ago Selma Lagerloef became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature She assured her place in Swedish letters with this sweeping historical epic her first & best-loved novel & the basis for the 1924 silent film of the same name that launched Greta Garbo to stardom Set in 1820s Sweden it tells the story of a defrocked minister named Goesta Berling After his appetite for alcohol & previous indiscretions end his career Berling finds a home at Ekeby an ironworks estate owned by Margareta Celsing the Majoress that also houses & assortment of eccentric veterans of the Napoleanic Wars Berling's defiant & poetic spirit proves magnetic to a string of women who fall under his spell against the backdrop of political intrigue at Margareta's estate & the magnificent wintry beauty of rural Sweden