Pelle the Conqueror

A gray dawn, crows worrying at carrion, and a horn howling through the fog: the harbor waits for a steamer carrying what one innkeeper calls “cheap Swedish laborers.” Among them is eight-year-old Pelle Karlsson, bound for a life far from home.

It is May 1, 1877, on the Danish coast, where farmers gather to hire the newcomers and the town watches the sea with uneasy anticipation. Pelle has crossed from Sweden with his father, arriving in a country where a poor boy’s strength may be worth more than his hopes. As he grows, the struggle to make a life will bring him face to face with the hard bargains struck between workers and those who employ them. What can Pelle make of a world that seems to have measured his worth before he has even set foot on shore?

With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world.

Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.