Patto narrativo e paratesto in Fältskärns berättelser (I racconti del chirurgo di campo) di Zacharias Topelius

This article examines Finland-Swedish writer Zacharias Topelius’s historical novel Fältskärns berättelser (The Surgeon’s Stories, 1853-67). The aim is to analyze how two aspects of the discourse, the narrative pact and the paratext, come together to guide the process of reading and help the reader interpret the text as a work of narrative or of history. The reflection on Carl Larsson’s illustrations focusses on their paratextual capacity and on the interrelation between the images and the text and its message.