Armadale

Collins, Wilkie, 1824-1889Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.3

Word count: 1.3M words
Chapters: 128

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.Armadale by Wilkie CollinsAuthor: Collins, Wilkie, 1824-1889,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Sep 1, 1999

Editor's review

Armadale is a novel by Wilkie Collins following The Woman in White and The Moonstone, and one of the representative works of the Victorian sensation novel. Collins excelled at weaving family secrets, mistaken identity, and coincidences of fate into multi-threaded narratives, and this book continues in that vein: intricate relationships, shifting narrative perspectives, and a plot that advances through the delay and revelation of information. Its value for readers lies not only in suspense itself but in seeing how a nineteenth-century English popular novel managed pacing, used coincidence to drive the story, and sustained the author's attention to psychology and moral circumstance. This is a public-domain English ebook from Project Gutenberg; it is long, and suits readers with blocks of time who are willing to follow a multi-threaded narrative at a steady pace. If you have read other works by Collins and like his narrative method, this belongs on your list; if you prefer short, tight modern suspense, prepare yourself for the length and pace.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who love The Woman in White and The Moonstone and want more Collins
Literary readers interested in Victorian English novels and the sensation novel
Readers with blocks of reading time who can accept multi-threaded narrative and greater length
Writing students who want to study nineteenth-century popular-fiction narrative technique

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer short, fast-paced suspense and find long multi-threaded narratives hard to commit to
Readers with limited English reading ability who need a Chinese translation or detailed annotations
Beginners hoping for a tight, single-thread story

Reading tips

Before starting, sort out the main characters' names and relationships; a homemade character list helps avoid confusion in a multi-threaded narrative.
Proceed chapter by chapter rather than skipping; the suspense depends on the order in which information is revealed, and skipping weakens the effect.
The book is long; set a fixed number of pages per day to keep the narrative threads coherent in memory.
After finishing, revisit the key turning points to observe how the author planted clues in advance and arranged coincidences.

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 easier to read than The Moonstone?

Both belong to Collins's long-form narrative mode, relying on multiple perspectives and delayed information, but this book's relationships are more intricate. Whether it is easier varies by reader; if you are already comfortable with The Moonstone's pace, entering this book will be relatively smooth; if not, gain some experience with long novels first.

Is this the complete novel or an abridged edition?

The record shows this is Project Gutenberg's English ebook of Armadale, a public-domain full text rather than an abridgment or adaptation. Readers get the complete long novel and should accordingly reserve reading time.

Do I need to know Victorian background to read it?

No prior study is required, but a little knowledge of nineteenth-century English society and law helps—for example, questions of property inheritance and identity determination at the time—since such background lets you better understand the motives and circumstances behind characters' actions.

Comments

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About the author

Collins, Wilkie, 1824-1889 Author

Wilkie Collins (1824–1889) was a British novelist best known for his detective and suspense fiction. The library holds 44 of his works, including The Woman in White, The Moonstone, No Name, Armadale, The Law and the Lady and The Dead Secret. He was skilled at multiple-perspective narration and building suspense, and he addressed social issues such as identity, marriage and the law, with intricate plots and vivid characters. The Moonstone is often regarded as one of the pioneering works of modern detective fiction and has had a lasting influence on later mystery writing. It should be noted that the library's information on his nationality and life dates is limited, so this introduction relies mainly on his works and general public knowledge.