Armorel of Lyonesse: A Romance of To-day

Besant, Walter, 1836-1901Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.3
Word count
868K words
Chapters
87

Tags

English Originals Romance Fiction Portrait GalleryFate and FortuneFamily BondsLove EntanglementsRomanceUrban RomanceSelf-GrowthSocial ObservationVictorian EraFemale Perspective

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.Armorel of Lyonesse: A Romance of To-day by Walter BesantAuthor: Besant, Walter, 1836-1901,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Feb 18, 2013

Editor's review

Walter Besant's Armorel of Lyonesse is a romance subtitled "To-day," a public-domain work in English literature freely released by Project Gutenberg. Besant was a prolific late nineteenth-century British novelist whose works often weave together regional manners, social change, and emotional entanglement. "Lyonesse" in the title points to a legendary place name off the southwest coast of England, suggesting local color and a romance atmosphere, while "To-day" indicates that the author deliberately sets the romance in the social reality of his time. Reading this work reveals how late Victorian fiction balanced plot interest with social observation: the emotional thread advances alongside depictions of local life and the spirit of the age. It suits readers interested in Victorian British fiction, regional literature, or the romance tradition. Because the book dates from an early period, its narrative pace differs markedly from today's popular fiction, and readers need some patience to enter the text. Overall, it is a work worth reading as evidence of literary history rather than a popular novel for those seeking strong plot excitement.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the opening chapters first to become familiar with the narrative pace and character relationships before continuing.
  2. Consult background material on late Victorian British society to understand the purpose of the "To-day" subtitle.
  3. Pay attention to how local color and the emotional thread intertwine, and take brief notes.
  4. If the pace slackens midway, read it in parts rather than forcing yourself through long sessions.

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
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FAQ

What does "Lyonesse" in the title refer to? Lyonesse is a legendary place name associated with the southwest coast of England, often linked to the sunken land of Arthurian legend. The author uses it in the title to suggest a local legendary quality, but the specific plot should be judged from the text itself.
What does the subtitle "To-day" mean? The subtitle indicates that the author deliberately sets the romance in the social reality of his time rather than in a purely ancient story. While reading, note the depictions of the spirit of the age and local life.
Is this book difficult to read? It is a late Victorian novel with a slower narrative pace and longer sentences, posing some difficulty for modern readers. It is advisable to sample the opening chapters first and confirm that you can adapt to the style before reading it through.
Is it suitable as supplementary reading for a British literature course? It can serve as supplementary material on late Victorian fiction and regional literature, helping to illustrate how romance was written at the time. But it is not among the most mainstream classics and is best used with a guide and background material.

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About the author

Besant, Walter, 1836-1901 Author

Walter Besant (1836–1901) was an English author whose writings span fiction, history, and works on the city, with 23 titles held in this collection. Judging from the works listed here, his writing is clearly centred on the local history and urban memory of London. He produced a two-volume Mediæval London, covering its historical and social as well as its ecclesiastical aspects, and period-based surveys such as London in the Time of the Stuarts and Early London: Prehistoric, Roman, Saxon and Norman. He also devoted separate books to particular districts—Westminster, East London, and London City—and wrote The History of London. These works are marked by solid local antiquarian research and a wealth of anecdote, and will appeal to readers interested in London's urban development and British social and cultural history. Public information on the details of his life is limited, so no conjecture is offered here.