The economic-historic art of reading novels has the potential to generate more complex images of social and economic contexts than what the analysis of more traditional source material sometimes can. Studying novels can also give ideas of researching other circumstances than are perhaps common within economic history. The novel’s perspective makes it possible to observe overlooked circumstances. Finally, the reading of novels can make a search for the everyday perceptions of economic and social circumstances easier. This is how the reading of novels can contribute to economic historic research.

At the heart of our reading are the economic and social processes and contexts against which the main plot is usually told. Three novels from the first half of the twentieth century have been used. They all depict life in the countryside and by using these we try to uncover ideas about reactions to the technical and organizational development in farming, the migration from the countryside, especially by young women, and the economic inequalities between the urban life and the countryside.