A Secret Inheritance

Farjeon, B. L. (Benjamin Leopold), 1833-1903Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.3

Word count: 216K words
Chapters: 22

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.A Secret Inheritance (Volume 1 of 3) by B. L. FarjeonAuthor: Farjeon, B. L. (Benjamin Leopold), 1833-1903,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Jun 4, 2014

Editor's review

A Secret Inheritance is a novel by the English writer Benjamin Leopold Farjeon; the edition released by Project Gutenberg is the first of three volumes. Farjeon was known for intricate plotting and sustained suspense. The book revolves around a hidden inheritance, advancing the narrative through character relationships and layer-by-layer revelation, with the typical pleasures of Victorian popular fiction: family secrets, conflicts of interest, and moral tests interwoven, with the pace carried mainly by dialogue and scene. As a public-domain eBook, its main demands on the reader lie in the English original and the three-volume structure—the first volume chiefly sets up characters and suspense, and readers must accept that the story does not fully resolve at the volume's end. It suits readers interested in nineteenth-century English popular fiction and family-secret themes as light original-language reading, and is also useful for observing the narrative techniques and character construction of serial novels of the period.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy Victorian English popular fiction
Readers interested in family secrets and inheritance disputes
Those who want light original-language practice with a long English text
Students and enthusiasts studying the narrative structure of nineteenth-century serial novels

Not a good fit for

Readers who want a complete story in a single volume
Readers who prefer fast-paced modern suspense and strong reversals
Readers with weak English reading skills who need a Chinese translation alongside

Reading tips

First confirm that you have the first of three volumes, and expect the story not to be resolved before reading.
Proceed chapter by chapter, and at the end of each chapter note in one sentence the new characters and clues.
Pay attention to the relationships revealed in dialogue; this is the main way the book advances suspense.
If you are still interested after reading, look for the remaining two volumes to keep the character threads continuous.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this a complete story?

No. This Project Gutenberg edition is the first of three volumes, chiefly serving to introduce characters and set up suspense; the story does not conclude at the volume's end. To understand the full plot, you need to continue with the remaining two volumes.

Does reading this book require a high level of English?

This is an English original, written in the style of nineteenth-century popular fiction, with long sentences but a clearly plot-driven approach. Readers with intermediate English can make progress with a dictionary; with weaker English, the reading experience will be quite demanding.

Is this book connected to the author's other works?

Based on the available information, this is an independent novel by Farjeon, with no indication of plot connections to his other works. Readers can treat it as a standalone work without prior knowledge of other books.

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About the author

Farjeon, B. L. (Benjamin Leopold), 1833-1903 Author

Benjamin Leopold Farjeon (1833–1903) was a prolific English novelist of the late nineteenth century. Public information about his life is limited: the available records confirm only his name, year of death, and the twenty-nine works held in the collection, without stating his nationality or detailed experiences. Judging from the surviving titles, he wrote mainly long novels with intricate plots, often touching on mystery and crime, including Aaron the Jew: A Novel, The Mystery of M. Felix, A Secret Inheritance, Devlin the Barber, Toilers of Babylon: A Novel, The House of the White Shadows, and Joshua Marvel. These works generally revolve around secrets, inheritances, and lower-class urban figures, with compact narration and a sombre atmosphere; they found readers in their day and offer material for studying Victorian popular fiction.