Not much has been written about Lagerlöf's "The Legend of the Christmas Rose." As Marguerite Yourcenar notes in a 1975 essay, the story's Christmas setting may be partly at fault. Yourcenar calls the story "an exquisite tale one might be tempted to overlook, so many stupid Christmas stories in illustrated magazines having disgusted us with that form of literature." Yourcenar is particularly interested in the forest miracle, which she calls a "profoundly satisfying notion of a biblical Eden." Likewise, in his 1931 book, Selma Lagerlöf: Her Life and Work, Walter A. Berendsohn calls the story "the most beautiful of the Värmland stories," and says that the story "is instinct with that blending of divine Love and human charity, of angel-vision and deep kindliness which lie at the very heart of Christianity."

In addition to the lack of critical attention paid to the...