The sea shapes the inhabitants of the archipelago islands - it is the source of their life and an eternal witness to their striving and failures. Strindberg often depicts the island landscape as an idyll, while humorously portraying the rural coexistence of the archipelago residents. However, life is by no means only tranquil: newcomers are met with suspicion in the isolation, hierarchies are tested, and intense conflicts arise between men and women, the individual and society, personal will and higher powers and constraints. The poet of the turn of the century also demonstrates a keen sensitivity to the state of modern man - caught between tradition, progress, and a crisis of faith. Many urban decadents find themselves at odds with the tradition-bound rural inhabitants. The multifaceted maritime prose includes stories as well as the two novels "The Hemsö Inhabitants.".