Editing Zachris Topelius (section)

===Early life===

The original name of the Topelius family was the Finnish name Toppila, which had been Latinized to Toppelius by the author's grandfather's grandfather and later changed to Topelius. Topelius was born at Kuddnäs, near [[Nykarleby]] in [[Ostrobothnia (administrative region)|Ostrobothnia]], the son of a physician of the same name ({{ill|Zacharias Topelius the Elder|fi|Zacharias Topelius vanhempi}}), who was distinguished as the earliest collector of Finnish folk songs.<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=1|wstitle=Topelius, Zakris|last=Gosse|first=Edmund William|author-link=Edmund Gosse|volume=27|page=49}}</ref> His grandfather, [[Mikael Toppelius]], was a painter noted for his murals and altarpieces in churches in Ostrobothnia.{{Sfn|Schoolfield|1998|p=334}}

As a child, he heard his mother, Katarina Sofia Calamnius, sing the songs of the Finnish-Swedish poet [[Frans Michael Franzén]]. At the age of eleven, he was sent to school in [[Oulu]] and boarded with relatives in the possession of a lending library, where he nurtured his imagination with the reading of novels. He was given a Christian upbringing that came to characterize his entire life.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Boije |first=Erika|chapter=Inledning|title=Zacharias Topelius, Religiösa skrifter och psalmer|editor=Magnus Nylund|id=ZTS XIX, SSLS 867|location=Helsinki|publisher=Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland|chapter-url=https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:sls-8085-1609135499|year=2022|language=sv}}</ref>