During his long creative period Vilde wrote eleven novels all together. His historical trilogy and The Milkman of Mäeküla stand definitely out among these eleven.

The Peasant War at Mahtra (1902) is certainly Vilde’s most impressive and best-known novel. Vilde wrote about the conflict between the Juuru manorial estate and its peasants in the mid-19th century in such a way that this revolt among several became a true historical event. Had Vilde not written the novel, the revolt might even not been included in every textbook of history today.

The writer, thirty seven years old at the time, obtained material for his novel at the provincial archives and from the local people of the Juuru parish.

When the novel was published as a supplement to the newspaper Gazette in January 1902, it immediately became popular. Vilde had perceived how much people needed historical heroes. Everybody read the supplement and Vilde’s name became known in every Estonian village and town.

Vilde got the idea to write his next novel When the Men of Anija Went to Tallinn (1903) quite spontaneously. He had obtained lots of material that he had not used for the previous work and his readers urged him to write more historical novels. This novel is cantered around the savage public scourging of the peasant delegation in the so-called Russian market in Tallinn. The novel offers a detailed picture of life in the contemporary town.

Prophet Maltsvet (1908) – the last part of the trilogy – took Vilde over three years to complete and he was forced to do it in four different countries. Vilde remarked that the novel was victimised by his own and his publisher’s poverty. The writer posted it chapter by chapter to Estonia and received rather meagre royalty for his effort. In order to keep this source of subsistence bubbling, Vilde “had to work hard and too fast”. (E. Vilde, Articles and letters, 1957)

This most voluminous work by Vilde touches the extremist sects and religious fanatism of the followers of Maltsvet that caused the peasants emigration to the Crimea, in the hope of finding the Promised Land. Thanks to this novel, the expression of “waiting for the white boat” is still understood and used as a symbol of something that would save one from the troubles. Vilde was the first to deal with the history of the Crimean Estonians and thus the novel is, among other things, an invaluable source of history for the offspring of the Crimean Estonians today.

Vilde’s historical trilogy has been an essential pathfinder for understanding the history of Estonian peasantry better. Historian Juhan Kahk has declared Vilde to be a great teacher of history to all of us.

While in exile, Vilde wrote two more novels. By that time the historian had become a psychologist.

Redemption (1909) is his only novel that is based on foreign material. Through the eyes of a small boy the novel deals with the life of workers in Copenhagen and the hardly any opportunities they had. The novel reflects Vilde’s own experiences in Denmark. This is Vilde’s only novel that has not become popular among Estonian readers.

The Milkman of Mäeküla (1916) is the most modern and artistically mature novel Vilde ever wrote. For the first time in Estonian literature the psychology of the characters was so sensitively analysed. The characters and the plot come from the manorial estate of Karjaküla, Harjumaa at the end of the 1890s – the time and location  well known to the author. Today The Milkman of Mäeküla has been interpreted and rendered most extensively among all Vilde’s work.

 In addition to the novels already mentioned Vilde wrote Sharp Arrows (1885), Two Fingers (1887), Where the Sun Does not Shine (1887), Stolen Wings (1892), Iron Hands (1892), To the Frozen Land (1892) and  Servants of the People (commenced in 1933 but never completed).

***

Sharp Arrows, 1885

Two Fingers, 1887

Where the Sun does not Shine, 1887

Stolen Wings, 1892

To the Frozen Land, 1896

Iron Hands, 1888-1898

The Peasant War at Mahtra, 1902

When the Men of Anija Went to Tallinn, 1903

Prophet Maltsvet, 1905-1908

Redemption, 1909

The Milkman of Mäeküla, 1916

Servants of the People, unfinished