All the Way to Fairyland: Fairy Stories

Sharp, Evelyn, 1869-1955Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.2
Word count
206K words
Chapters
21

Tags

English Originals Children's Literature Adventure JourneyFantasy JourneyImaginationGrowing UpTruth Goodness BeautyHeartwarming NarrativeExotic CultureFairy Tale WorldParent-Child ReadingYouth Reading

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.All the Way to Fairyland: Fairy Stories by Evelyn SharpAuthor: Sharp, Evelyn, 1869-1955,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Nov 3, 2009

Editor's review

This fairy-tale collection comes from the English writer Evelyn Sharp and is presented by Project Gutenberg as a public-domain eBook, one of the classic texts released early in the project's history. Sharp's fairy tales are clear and graceful in language, lively and free in imagination, and often use light narration to gently reflect on kindness, courage, and growth; the book is suitable as reading material for an introduction to English literature and for developing a feel for the language. Its value lies not in complex plots but in the style itself: the short stories are clearly structured, and the diction is classical without being obscure, so readers can experience in a relatively short time the narrative tone of British children's literature from the late Victorian period to the early twentieth century. In terms of reading scenarios, it is suitable both as material for bedtime reading aloud and for English learners doing intensive reading and imitation writing practice; for readers studying the history of fairy tales or women's writing, it also offers a sample for further exploration. Note that this is an electronic text of the original English edition, not a bilingual edition, so readers should have a basic sense of their own English reading stamina before starting.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read one or two tales at a time, then retell the plot in two or three sentences to train English summarizing skills.
  2. Mark unfamiliar expressions first instead of looking them up immediately, and check them together after finishing the whole piece.
  3. Choose one piece for a read-aloud recording and correct pronunciation and pauses against the original text.
  4. If used for parent-child reading, read through it yourself first and select pieces of suitable length and difficulty.

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.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21

FAQ

Is this book in Chinese or English? This is an English-language eBook released by Project Gutenberg, with the main text in English and no Chinese translation or bilingual comparison. Chinese readers need some English foundation to read it, and it is advisable to start with shorter pieces with simpler sentences.
What age of children are the fairy tales in this book suitable for? Judging by text difficulty, it is more suitable for upper-primary or middle-grade readers with some English reading experience, or for parents to read aloud to younger children. To decide whether it is suitable, try reading one or two pieces first and then judge based on the child's comprehension and interest.
What should be noted when reading the electronic edition? Public-domain electronic texts are usually presented as plain text with simple layout and may lack illustrations and careful typographic design. It is advisable to use reading software with adjustable font size and annotation features, and to read in sections to avoid staring at the screen for long periods.
What else can I read after finishing this book? If you like Sharp's fairy-tale style, you can continue with public-domain works by British fairy-tale writers of the same period; if you are focusing on English learning, you can pair this book with graded readers, first reading adapted versions to build confidence and then returning to the original text.

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About the author

Sharp, Evelyn, 1869-1955 Author

Evelyn Sharp (1869–1955) was an English writer known for her fairy tales and children's fiction, who also wrote for adult readers. Public information about her is limited, and few details of her life are available, but the five works held in the collection show two strands of her writing: fairy-tale collections such as The Other Side of the Sun: Fairy Stories and All the Way to Fairyland: Fairy Stories, which are richly imaginative and gentle in tone and suited to children; and works such as Rebel Women, The Youngest Girl in the School and At the Relton Arms, which touch on women's circumstances, school life and family narrative and reveal her concern with real-world issues. Her prose is clear and her plots readable, moving naturally between fairy tale and coming-of-age story.