A Return to the Enchanted Forest: John Bauer’s Bland Tomtar och Troll 7, 1913

Following the success of the 1912 volume, John Bauer returned to the pages of Bland Tomtar och Troll in 1913 with a seventh edition that reaffirmed his status as Sweden’s preeminent fairy-tale artist. Published by Åhlén & Åkerlunds Förlag in Göteborg, this volume continued the beloved annual tradition, bringing together new stories by Sweden’s leading children’s authors with Bauer’s increasingly masterful illustrations. For collectors and admirers of his work, the 1913 edition represents a continuation of his mature style—a deepening of the vision that had made the series a national treasure.

The seventh volume followed the format that had been established the previous year: white cloth binding with a color pictorial label on the front cover, gilt stamping on the spine, and a generous selection of tipped-in color plates protected by tissue guards. Inside, readers discovered sixteen hand-mounted color illustrations by Bauer, a color pictorial title page, and five black-and-white chapter headings. The stories were contributed by familiar names—Helena Nyblom, Anna Wahlenberg, and others—who wrote original fairy tales that drew upon Swedish folklore and the rich traditions of the Scandinavian storytelling.

What distinguishes the 1913 volume is the continued evolution of Bauer’s atmospheric style. His palette remains rooted in the muted earth tones of the Swedish forest—soft greens, mossy browns, touches of gold and blue—yet there is a growing confidence in his use of light and shadow. The forests of this volume feel even more ancient, more mystical; the trolls more monumental, more deeply integrated into the landscape. Bauer had a gift for rendering the boundary between the human world and the otherworldly, and in the 1913 illustrations, that boundary seems particularly permeable.

The stories themselves explored familiar themes: children venturing into the forest and encountering magical beings, trolls with unexpected gentleness, princesses in need of rescue, and the quiet wisdom that comes from encounters with the unknown. Bauer’s illustrations responded to each tale with sensitivity, finding the emotional heart of each narrative and rendering it in his distinctive visual language. A princess might be depicted in a grove of silver birch, her gown echoing the colors of the dawn; a troll might emerge from a moss-covered rock, his face a study in melancholy dignity.

The 1913 edition also reflects Bauer’s deep connection to the landscapes of his childhood. Born in Jönköping in the province of Småland, he had grown up amidst the ancient forests, rocky hills, and dark lakes that would become the settings for his most famous images. The forests in this volume are recognizably Småland—places where the boundary between reality and legend has always been thin, where trolls and other creatures seem not merely imagined but remembered.

Today, the 1913 Bland Tomtar och Troll is among the most sought-after of Bauer’s works. The white cloth binding of these volumes was notoriously fragile, and surviving copies in fine condition—with clean plates, intact tissue guards, and bright covers—are increasingly scarce. For collectors, the seventh volume represents a continuation of Bauer’s golden period, a bridge between his earlier contributions and the final volumes he would illustrate before his tragic death in 1918.

In the pages of this book, the enchanted forest lives on. The trolls still guard their hidden realms; the princesses still walk paths of magic; the children still venture into the unknown and return transformed. John Bauer’s vision of Swedish folklore, captured in these illustrations, remains as vivid and captivating today as it was more than a century ago—a reminder that the greatest fairy-tale art is born not of escape but of deep belonging, of an artist who knew the forest so well that he could reveal its secrets to the rest of us.

For Collectors:

• Bland tomtar och troll, Vol. 1–9 (1907–1915), illustrated by John Bauer – Earlier volumes showcasing the evolution of Bauer’s mythic style.
• East of the Sun and West of the Moon (1914) – Kay Nielsen’s Nordic fairy-tale illustrations
• The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (1909) – Arthur Rackham’s Germanic folklore interpretations
• Tales from the Norse Legends (1910), illustrated by H. J. Ford – Classic Norse mythology presented with vintage Golden Age illustrations.

Art Gallery: John Bauer – Bland Tomtar Och Troll 7