A Wounded Name

King, Charles, 1844-1933Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.3

Word count: 346K words
Chapters: 35

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 Wounded Name by Charles KingAuthor: King, Charles, 1844-1933,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: May 7, 2007

Editor's review

Charles King's A Wounded Name is an English-language novel centered on honor and a crisis of reputation, and it serves as a window into late nineteenth-century American popular narrative. Released free by Project Gutenberg, the text has been proofread and is convenient for electronic reading. The story revolves around a figure wounded by stigma and, through its plot, explores how social judgment affects individual destiny, carrying a certain moral tension and the mark of its era. Its language is typical of late Victorian popular fiction: long sentences and a slow narrative pace that readers used to fast-paced modern novels will need to adjust to. As a public-domain e-book, it is better read as a sample within the arc of literary history than as light entertainment seeking strong dramatic conflict. Readers are advised to note how the author handles the tension between characters' psychology and public opinion, which helps in understanding how novels of the time used the theme of reputation to build plot.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literature enthusiasts interested in late nineteenth-century American fiction
Students who need to study narrative techniques in public-domain English novels
Readers accustomed to e-books who can accept longer sentences
Those who want to see how the themes of reputation and public opinion appear in older fiction

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer fast-paced modern genre fiction with strong plots
Those whose English reading ability is not yet sufficient for long-sentence narrative
Readers expecting a Chinese translation or an annotated edition for assistance

Reading tips

Read the first few chapters first to get used to the author's sentence rhythm and character relationships before deciding on your pace.
Jot down passages related to "honor" and "stigma" as you read, so you can trace the thematic threads later.
Read alongside introductory material on late nineteenth-century American society for context.
If the pace feels slow midway, switch to one chapter a day to stay consistent without forcing speed.

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 book in Chinese or English?

This is the original English text, released as an e-book by Project Gutenberg with no Chinese translation attached. Readers need a certain level of English reading ability, especially the ability to handle the longer sentences and narrative pace of late nineteenth-century popular fiction.

What are the features of the Project Gutenberg edition?

Project Gutenberg is one of the earliest projects to provide free e-books, and its editions are proofread and released based on public-domain texts, making them easy to obtain free and read electronically. This book is a public-domain e-book released by that project, suitable for reading on a computer or e-reader.

What background knowledge is needed to read this book?

Understanding how late nineteenth-century American society valued honor and social judgment will help in grasping the motives and conflicts of the plot. Without that background, you can start with the plot's progression and then return to appreciate its moral tension.

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About the author

King, Charles, 1844-1933 Author

Charles King (1844–1933) was an American author. Public information about him is limited, and few systematic records of his life details are available. The library holds twenty-eight of his works, commonly classified under inspirational growth. Representative titles include Campaigning with Crook, and Stories of Army Life; Starlight Ranch, and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier; A Wounded Name; Warrior Gap: A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68; From the Ranks; Sunset Pass or, Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land; Lanier of the Cavalry or, A Week's Arrest; and An Apache Princess: A Tale of the Indian Frontier. As the titles suggest, his writing draws largely on American frontier and military life, centering on Indian frontier conflicts, cavalry experience, and everyday camp life. The works combine adventure narrative with elements of personal growth, emphasizing plot momentum and the recreation of period atmosphere, and offer some reference value for understanding nineteenth-century American popular literature on Western military themes.