Throughout her literary career, Lagerlöf wrote many short narrative works, a number of which were commissioned for newspapers and journals. She especially had many requests to contribute stories to Christmas editions of newspapers, which explains why many of her short stories concern winter and the celebration of Christmas. Lagerlöf was extremely conscientious when it came to these occasional pieces, and some of her Christmas stories, such as "The Peace of God" and "The Legend of the Christmas Roses" ("Legenden om julrosorna"), have become minor classics in Sweden.

Lagerlöf's first collection of short stories, Invisible Links (1894), established her as a writer of short fiction. The collection came out in several editions, augmented in 1904 by additional short pieces that she wrote in the closing years of the 1890s, some of which are counted among her finest works. Lagerlöf's publisher, Bonniers, also...