PagineViking sagas, the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Ibsen’s revolutionary plays and Pippi Longstocking — Scandinavian classics punch far above their weight. Here are 50 essential books from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Finland, with short guides to the great Nordic authors, where to start, and many you can read free online in English.
New to Scandinavian literature? Begin with one of these — or follow our step-by-step guide, What to Read for Scandinavian Classics →
Full books, free in the Pagine e-reader on any phone, tablet or computer — no download.
Short biographies, what to read first, and every book of theirs on this list.
Hans Christian Andersen, the son of a poor shoemaker, left Odense for Copenhagen at 14 hoping to become an actor. He found fame instead with his fairy tales — more than 150 of them, from “The Little Mermaid” and “The Emperor’s New Clothes” (1837) to “The Ugly Duckling” (1843), “The Snow Queen” (1844) and “The Little Match Girl” (1845). Unlike the Grimms, who collected folk tales, Andersen mostly invented his own, mixing humour, sadness and sharp social observation. They have been translated into well over 100 languages. International Children’s Book Day is held on his birthday, 2 April.
Where to start: Andersen’s Fairy Tales
On this list: Andersen’s Fairy Tales
Hans Christian Andersen: biography & books (1 free to read) →
Søren Kierkegaard, often called the father of existentialism, wrote about anxiety, faith and the individual’s choices under a series of playful pen names. Either/Or and Fear and Trembling (both 1843) and The Sickness unto Death (1849) influenced philosophers and writers from Sartre to Kafka.
Where to start: Fear and Trembling
On this list: Either/Or · Fear and Trembling
Henrik Ibsen is often called the father of modern drama — after Shakespeare, he may be the world’s most performed playwright. After the verse dramas Brand and Peer Gynt (1867), he wrote realistic plays that shocked audiences by putting ordinary middle-class lives under a microscope: A Doll’s House (1879), with Nora’s famous exit; Ghosts (1881); An Enemy of the People (1882); The Wild Duck; and Hedda Gabler (1890).
Where to start: A Doll’s House
On this list: Brand · Peer Gynt · A Doll’s House · Ghosts · An Enemy of the People · The Wild Duck · Hedda Gabler · The Master Builder
August Strindberg, Sweden’s most famous writer, was a novelist, playwright, painter and restless experimenter. His satirical novel The Red Room (1879) founded modern Swedish prose; his naturalist plays The Father (1887) and Miss Julie (1888) are battles of the sexes and classes; and A Dream Play (1902) anticipated expressionism and surrealism.
Where to start: Miss Julie
On this list: The Red Room · The Father · Miss Julie · A Dream Play
Selma Lagerlöf was a schoolteacher whose first novel, Gösta Berling’s Saga (1891), brought the legends of her home province, Värmland, to life. Asked to write a geography reader for Swedish schools, she produced The Wonderful Adventures of Nils (1906–07), in which a mischievous boy shrunk to elf size flies across Sweden on the back of a goose. In 1909 she became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Where to start: The Wonderful Adventures of Nils
On this list: Gösta Berling’s Saga · Jerusalem · The Wonderful Adventures of Nils
Knut Hamsun grew up poor in northern Norway and drifted through odd jobs, including years in America, before Hunger (1890) — the feverish inner monologue of a starving writer in Kristiania (Oslo) — made him a pioneer of modernist fiction. Pan and Growth of the Soil (1917) followed, and he won the Nobel Prize in 1920. His later support for the Nazi occupation of Norway left his reputation permanently divided.
Where to start: Hunger
On this list: Hunger · Pan · Growth of the Soil
Sigrid Undset’s trilogy Kristin Lavransdatter (1920–22) follows one woman’s life from childhood to death in 14th-century Norway, with a richness that has kept it in print for a century. She won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1928 and spent World War II as a refugee in the United States, campaigning against Nazism.
Where to start: Kristin Lavransdatter
On this list: Kristin Lavransdatter
Astrid Lindgren invented Pippi Longstocking — the strongest girl in the world — as a bedtime story for her sick daughter. Pippi Longstocking (1945) was followed by Emil, Karlsson-on-the-Roof, The Brothers Lionheart and Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter; her books have sold well over 100 million copies. The world’s largest prize for children’s literature, the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, is named after her.
Where to start: Pippi Longstocking
On this list: Pippi Longstocking · The Brothers Lionheart · Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter
6 of these are free to read in Pagine right now (📖 Read free). The rest link to a free public-domain edition or to Open Library, where many can be borrowed free.
Print it, save it as a PDF, email it to yourself or share it with a friend, book club or class. Every copy links back to pagineapp.com, and the free Pagine app tracks every book you finish.
iPhone & iPad
Android19 free books by Scandinavian authors in Pagine — including titles beyond this list.
Every title on the list links to the free sources that may have it. Public-domain books are free to read and download; newer books can often be borrowed free.
The medieval Icelandic sagas are some of the first realistic prose narratives in Europe; Andersen and Lindgren shaped children’s literature everywhere; Ibsen and Strindberg created modern theatre; and in the 1960s Sjöwall and Wahlöö launched the crime fiction now called Nordic noir. Older translations of the sagas, Andersen, Ibsen, Strindberg, Lagerlöf and Hamsun are free to read online.
Andersen’s fairy tales, Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Hamsun’s Hunger, Njál’s Saga and Lagerlöf’s The Wonderful Adventures of Nils are excellent starting points.
They include Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1903), Selma Lagerlöf (1909), Knut Hamsun (1920), Sigrid Undset (1928), Pär Lagerkvist (1951) and Halldór Laxness (1955), among others.
Yes. Nineteenth- and early 20th-century English translations of the Eddas and many sagas, including Njál’s Saga, are in the public domain and free online.
Strictly, Scandinavia means Denmark, Norway and Sweden; the wider “Nordic” countries add Finland and Iceland. This hub covers all five.
Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Mikhail Lermontov and more
Explore →🎩William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley and more
Explore →🗽Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville and more
Explore →🥖Molière, Voltaire, Stendhal and more
Explore →💃Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Pedro Calderón de la Barca and more
Explore →🌎Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Machado de Assis, Rubén Darío and more
Explore →🌍Olaudah Equiano, Sol Plaatje, Chinua Achebe and more
Explore →🏰Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Brothers Grimm and more
Explore →🍝Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio and more
Explore →🏛️Homer, Aesop, Sophocles and more
Explore →🏮Confucius, Laozi, Cao Xueqin and more
Explore →☘️Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker and more
Explore →🍁Susanna Moodie, L. M. Montgomery, Stephen Leacock and more
Explore →🦘Henry Lawson, Banjo Paterson, Miles Franklin and more
Explore →