Ariadne

Gréville, Henry, 1842-1902Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.7

Word count: 300K words
Chapters: 30

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.Ariadne by Henry GrévilleAuthor: Gréville, Henry, 1842-1902,Language: French, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Jun 14, 2014

Editor's review

Ariadne is a novel in French by Henry Gréville (1842–1902), a public-domain literary work. Gréville was an active French novelist of the late nineteenth century whose works often focus on women's circumstances, marriage, and family ethics, with delicate prose and a note of social observation. Titled after Ariadne of Greek myth, the book readily evokes themes of fate, guidance, and emotional entanglement, and serves as an entry point into nineteenth-century French popular fiction. As a free Project Gutenberg e-text, it is extremely accessible; the formatting is primarily plain text, convenient for reading or searching on electronic devices. Readers are advised to situate it within the context of nineteenth-century French literature and women's writing, noting the narrator's attitudes toward marriage, class, and gender roles. Being a public-domain e-book without a modern introduction or notes, it requires some French reading ability and a habit of independent verification.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers with French reading ability who want to explore nineteenth-century French novels
Researchers interested in women's themes and narratives of marriage and family ethics
Students who need free public-domain texts for textual analysis or corpus collection
Readers who like to read classics on electronic devices and are used to verifying things independently

Not a good fit for

Readers with no French at all who want a Chinese translation
Beginners who need modern notes, introductions, and background analysis
Readers who prefer fast-paced plots and have limited patience for nineteenth-century narrative

Reading tips

Start by learning about nineteenth-century French society and women's writing; the text will be easier to follow.
Keep a French dictionary or electronic translation tool at hand, and note new words and period expressions as you read.
Read the Ariadne myth motif alongside the characters' relationships, and watch for the symbolic meaning of the title.
After each chapter, summarize the plot and characters' motives in your own words rather than just following the story.

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

What language is this book written in, and what reading background does it require?

Ariadne is in the original French and is a public-domain literary work. Readers need some French reading ability—at least enough to follow nineteenth-century narrative with a dictionary. If you have no French at all, it is best to find a Chinese translation or a bilingual edition before attempting the original.

What are the features of the Project Gutenberg edition?

Project Gutenberg provides free electronic texts, and this is one of them: easy to obtain, at zero cost, usually in plain text, and convenient for searching and copying. It has no modern introduction, notes, or translator's remarks, however; background information must be verified by the reader, and the formatting is relatively plain.

What kind of writer is Henry Gréville?

Henry Gréville was a late nineteenth-century French novelist whose works often deal with women's circumstances, marriage, and family ethics, with delicate narrative and social observation. When reading this book, place it in the context of French popular fiction of the period and note the narrator's attitudes toward gender roles and class.

What is the relationship between the title "Ariadne" and the content?

Ariadne in Greek myth provides the thread that helps Theseus escape the labyrinth, and is often associated with guidance, fate, and emotional entanglement. The novel takes this as its title; readers can watch whether the characters' relationships and the plot echo this motif, though the specific correspondences must be judged by the text itself.

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About the author

Gréville, Henry, 1842-1902 Author

Henry Gréville (Gréville, Henry, 1842–1902) was a novelist writing in French in the late nineteenth century. Public information about his life is very limited: his nationality, education and personal history are not reliably documented. Judging from the six works held in the collection, his writing consists mainly of long narrative fiction concerned with family ethics, kinship ties and individual destiny. Suzanne Normis: Roman d'un père unfolds its story from a father's point of view, while La fille de Dosia and L'expiation de Saveli deal with emotional entanglement and atonement. The Russian-style names in the titles, together with figures such as "The Little Russian Servant" and "La Niania," suggest that he often introduced foreign settings and lower-class characters, in a realistic and sentimental tone. Gréville was thus a fairly productive popular novelist of his day; his works are not widely circulated now and are known mainly through bibliographic records.