Sven Hedin was a gifted and productive author, with more than fifty titles to his credit. They are of the most varying kinds, sizes and scopes. He is best known for his travelogues in which one can follow him on his expeditions virtually day by day. His skill for sharing his adventures with the reader and the often poetic language used for depicting landscapes and weather conditions met with, appealed to people, and the books sold in many editions. Hedin is translated into around thirty different languages. Before he turned to the scientific publications on his expeditions he also saw to that his travelogues were presented as books for the youth, in shortened forms. Hedin not only wanted to, but for financial reasons indeed needed to publish and sell many books, he also had a wish to share real information on the subjects he treated. In his books there are often chapters on the history and culture of the areas travelled through. The school-book, From Pole to Pole, that he was commissioned to write, combined this ease for writing in an easy and evocative language with a quest for sharing knowledge, The book was, and still is, read far outside the class-rooms, through the world Hedin describes is hardly the one we know today. Less known is that he also wrote a novel, meant for young readers; Tsangpo lamas vallfärd (The pilgrimage of Tsangpo lama).
However, Hedin, wrote many more books, pamphlets and close to one thousand articles of many other kinds, not the least with political contents; what in hindsight are two, may be too panegyric, reports from the battlefields of the First World War, or too appreciative accounts of Germany before and during the Second World War. He wrote books on his own life and adventures, being an expert on re-using old materials in new contexts, and in two thick volumes he shared memories of some of the many important men and women (a few) whom he had had the fortune of getting to know, apart from devoting full-length biographies to some persons important to him.
