Hjalmar Bergman is one of the best-known Swedish authors of the 20th century. His novels and plays still attract a wide audience. Even his life fascinates through its changing, sometimes tragic shaping. His personal letters offer a deep and interesting insight into the literary intentions behind his works as well as into his outlook on life. Both ethic and aesthetic matters are dealt with in his correspondence to a narrow circle of leading contemporary intellectuals e.g. Hans Larsson, Ellen Key and Tor Bonnier. Letters to his parents, his sisters and his wife reveal another, more defenceless, sometimes aggressive side of Bergman's character. Some 1,500 letters are still extant. As a whole they present a rich though rhapsodic diary on an elusive personality and writer. Some of the letters have previously been published, wholly or partially, but most of them are still unpublished.
The project aims at publishing - in three or four volumes -all letters in chronological order and according to prevalent principles for editing texts. The letters will be provided with a detailed commentary. The work on the edition is first and foremost to be seen as an infra-structural attempt at providing researchers with a meaningful instrument , giving them access to important documentary material. In addition to this a complete edition of letters is of great literary interest to the general public as the they constitute a comprehensive document humain of important value relating to the history of those times.