7 h 13 minAudiobook12 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 7 h 13 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What does love cost when marriage belongs to the family, and freedom means risking your place within it?
In Noble Game, Elisabeth Kuylenstierna-Wenster explores arranged marriage, forbidden love and the price of choosing for yourself. The Swedish novel turns toward a world shaped by family duty and social rank, where marriage is more than a private promise. Money, property and reputation weigh against feeling, and the wishes of the heart meet the demands of the household.
At its centre is a question with no comfortable answer: what do you owe your family, and what do you owe yourself? Love that does not fit the rules puts those loyalties under pressure. Freedom carries its own cost, too. Choosing your own path can mean risking security, approval or the place you hold among those closest to you.
What you’ll discover
- Marriage as a bargain Consider what happens when money, rank and reputation carry more weight than personal feeling.
- Love against the rules Explore the strain of feelings that challenge the boundaries a household sets.
- The weight of family Face the pull between loyalty to others and the wish to choose for yourself.
- Freedom with a cost Weigh the value of independence against the security and approval it may threaten.
- Women within social limits Reflect on lives shaped by expectations about marriage, family duty and social position.
Who will love it
Readers who love sweeping family sagas, castles with secrets, and heroines who test the rules of their age. It will also suit anyone curious about Swedish country life, old estates, and love set against duty.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A girl is taken to Bragehall
- A grandmother's old love comes back
- Letters, cards, and a hurried engagement
- A wedding day and a ghost at the window
- A husband who is not what she hoped
- The adventurer comes to the neighborhood
- A visit to Lögenäs and a confession
- Grandmother's last mission
- What the story is about and how it is told
Who’s who
- Gunvor EidenA rich, warmhearted orphan raised to obey, she longs for joy and slowly learns to claim a life of her own.
- Mrs. Margareta EidenGunvor's stern, silver-haired grandmother, who has loved Count Haqvin in secret for fifty years and plans a marriage to save his house.
- Count Haqvin Brage the youngerGunvor's husband, a sluggish, vain young nobleman who wants her fortune and expects her to obey.
- Eric GyldenloThe Mad Count, a charming, ruined dreamer and lute player who drifts from pleasure to pleasure and wants freedom above all.
- Old Count Haqvin BrageThe dying master of Bragehall, who wants his proud name to survive and has loved Margareta all his life.
- Miss Beat-SofiThe family housekeeper, part gypsy, who tells fortunes with cards and loves Gunvor as her little angel.
- Märta EdelcronaA polished society woman and neighbor who wants a high position and has her eye on Eric.
- HilleviGunvor's little daughter, a bright child who loves stories and elves and is fond of Uncle Eric.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
- On your phone, tablet, computer or Kindle, with the type as large as you like.
- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 7 h 13 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 12 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Le noble jeu
by Elisabeth Kuylenstierna-Wenster
An heiress is taken to a crumbling castle whose motto says hope for nothing, and a gray ghost walks its sealed room.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Noble Game is a Swedish novel by Elisabeth Kuylenstierna-Wenster, who died in 1933. It follows Gunvor Eiden, the orphaned heiress of a rich merchant house in a Halland coastal town, from her eighteenth year to old age.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A girl is taken to Bragehall
The story opens in a train and then a carriage, on an October evening. Eighteen-year-old Gunvor Eiden travels with her grandmother, Mrs. Eiden, to the old castle of Bragehall in Skåne. Gunvor is afraid of the castle and of the dying old count who lives there. Her grandmother tells her the reason for the trip. The count and she hope Gunvor will marry the count's grandson, young Haqvin Brage.
We learn who Gunvor is. She is the rich orphan of a merchant family whose founder came from Savoy selling plaster figures. Her father was nicknamed the Gold King, and he died of grief after losing his English wife. Gunvor has grown up under her grandmother's strict eye, with a hunger for joy that she cannot name.
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What is Noble Game about?
It follows Gunvor Eiden, a rich young heiress who is married to the heir of a crumbling Skåne castle. Over the years she faces duty, a loveless marriage, a risky love, and the fight for her own freedom.
What does the title Noble Game mean?
Noble game means hunted prey of high rank. Gunvor's grandmother uses the phrase when she watches her granddaughter ride with the young count, saying he can only wound, not kill. It frames Gunvor as the one being hunted.
What does the motto Fac et nihil spera mean?
It is the Latin motto of the Brage family, carved above the castle gate. It means act, and hope for nothing. Gunvor shudders at it at first, and it returns at key moments in the book.
The author
Elisabeth Kuylenstierna-Wenster
1869–1933 · Swedish writer and translator
Elisabeth Kuylenstierna-Wenster was a Swedish writer and translator who lived from 1869 to 1933. She lived and worked in Sweden. She wrote fiction and translated books into Swedish. Her career took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
More by Elisabeth Kuylenstierna-Wenster
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