At War with Society or, Tales of the Outcasts

James McLevyProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.4
Word count
379K words
Chapters
38

Tags

English Originals Foreign Literature Human NatureSocial CritiqueMoral DilemmaShort StoriesVictorian Era

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.At War with Society; or, Tales of the Outcasts by James M'LevyAuthor: M'Levy, James,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Aug 19, 2014

Editor's review

This book is James M'Levy's collection of tales of outcasts and marginal figures, written under the title "At War with Society," and belongs to the narrative tradition in English literature concerned with the fate of the poor and with social exclusion. Its value lies not in intricate plots but in placing figures pushed aside by mainstream society at the center of the narrative, letting readers see how poverty, prejudice, and institutional indifference shape a person's path. The individual tales are short, and the language carries the narrative rhythm of nineteenth-century English literature, making the book suitable as an introduction to the theme of the outcast and to the tradition of social concern in English literature. There is no need to seek continuous plot progression; it is better read one piece at a time, noting how the author uses scene and dialogue to present his characters' circumstances. As a public-domain e-book, the text has no modern annotations, so proper names and historical background must be looked up by the reader, which gives the reading a certain quality of documentary exploration.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the table of contents or the first piece to judge whether the narrative style suits you, then decide on the reading order.
  2. After each piece, note in two or three sentences why the character was excluded, to compare themes across the collection.
  3. Look up historical place names or social institutions as you go, rather than stopping reading because something is not immediately clear.
  4. Read alongside a popular introduction to social conditions in Victorian Britain to help understand the stories' background.

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
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38

FAQ

Does this book need to be read in order from beginning to end? No. It is a collection of stories that stand relatively independently, and you can begin with any one. It is advisable to start with a shorter piece with simpler character relations, and read other pieces once you are used to the narrative language; this makes it easier to enter the author's way of expression.
Will it be hard to understand without annotations? It will be somewhat difficult, since public-domain e-books usually carry no modern annotations. It is advisable to slow down, mark unfamiliar place names, occupations, or institutions, and look them up together. If you only want the gist of the stories, you can read through once first and return to the details afterward.
Is this book suitable for understanding the tradition of social critique in English literature? It can serve as one introductory text. It places outcasts and marginal figures at the center of the narrative and presents several facets of social exclusion. But one collection of stories is not enough to sum up the whole tradition; it is best read alongside a literary-historical overview or other works on the same theme.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

James McLevy Author · British

James McLevy, known in Chinese catalogues as M‘Levy, James, was a British author best known as an Edinburgh detective in Scotland and as the writer of Edinburgh crime tales. Details of his life, such as birth and death dates, education, and early career, are limited in publicly available sources and difficult to verify. Only one of his works is held in this collection, At War with Society or, Tales of the Outcasts. Judging from the title and subtitle, the book focuses on social outcasts and offenders, and reads as documentary-style crime narrative. Such writing tends to draw on first-hand observations from urban policing, emphasizing case accounts and character sketches. It offers a glimpse of the darker side of nineteenth-century Edinburgh and leaves a sketch of contemporary policing and lower-class life. The connection between his detective role and his writing is an important clue to understanding this work.