Birgit Th. Sparre (1903–1984)

Birgit Thomæus Sparre's biological parents and place of birth are unknown. In 1904, at about age 16, she became the foster child of Carl George and Signe Sparre of Sjöred Manor near Ulricehamn, who were childless.
She attended the French School in Stockholm, where the family lived during term time, and some years studied at home with a governess. After her foster father's death in 1920, she and her foster mother moved to a new mansion being built at Åsundsholm. While construction was underway, they stayed in Paris, Scotland, and England. Later they spent many winters in Cairo, Nice, Mallorca, and other places on the Mediterranean. Birgit Th Sparre made her literary debut at age 20 in 1925 with a travelogue, Ön av eld och lava (Island of Fire and Lava), based on her diary entries and photos from a stay on Tenerife. Her next book, Ett leende (1926) was partly based on her experiences in artists’ circles in Paris. She also wrote reviews and articles for Swedish publications. Her greatest success and best-loved book was the country house novel Gårdarna runt sjön (The Farms Around the Lake), published in 1928. In 1937, Birgit married Carl Theodor Thäberg, a print shop manager, with whom she had two children; the couple divorced in 1943. During World War II, she and the children returned to Stockholm and she embarked upon a new, large-scale suite of novels. In 1955, she remarried to the writer Stig Cederholm. He embezzled her assets, and Sparre was forced to sell Åsundsholm. For a while she traveled, but eventually she returned to the Ulricehamn area. In the late 1960s, she started to guide coach tours to the country houses that she had brought to life in her novels. During her career, she published a total of 33 books.