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The woman of the future - what would she be like? And what was her place in society? In Swedish girls' books of the 19th and early 20th centuries, these questions are explored through stories about girls' upbringing and education. In parallel with the breakthrough of female novelists in the 1830s, a literature for young women also began to emerge that described a motley existence of everyday play and dangerous adventures, of studies and professional dreams. These books, which were aimed directly at girls, wanted to both discuss and shape the female citizens of the future through literature. This study shows how the Swedish girls' book and its representations of young women became part of the increasingly intense debate on women's civil rights from the 1830s to the 1920s. The genre was a forum for writers with different political views, but they were united by the fact that in their texts they let the young woman be at the center of the great social upheavals of the day. Domestic girls, manly women students and shopping coquettes all shape different paths towards adulthood and into modern life. In the girls' books, the young woman becomes at the same time a bearer of nostalgic memories of a bygone world and a promise of a more equal, peaceful future.

Young adult literature, Swedish --- Children's literature, Swedish --- Girls in literature. --- Young women in literature. --- Young women --- Girls --- History and criticism. --- Books and reading --- History. --- Gunnar Örnulf --- Elna Wide --- Gerda Meyerson --- Hedda Anderson --- Hedvig Svedenborg --- Carl Sundbeck --- Ulrika von Strussenfelt --- Elisabeth Kuylenstierna-Wenster --- Cecilia Milow --- Ellen Idström --- Women’s Suffrage --- Girls’ Education --- Citizenship --- Women Authors --- Intersectionality --- Girls’ Literature