The novel takes place in in Lagerlöf's native Värmland and is about the tenant farmer Jan in Skrolycka and his daughter Glory Goldie Sunnycastle. He loves his daughter more than anything else, but after she moves to Stockholm at age 18, she stops sending letters home. The father sinks into a dream world where he imagines she has become a noble empress of "Portugallia", making him a great Emperor.
