Averil

Carey, Rosa Nouchette, 1840-1909Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.7

Word count: 371K words
Chapters: 38

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.Averil by Rosa Nouchette CareyAuthor: Carey, Rosa Nouchette, 1840-1909,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Feb 10, 2015

Editor's review

Averil is a novel by the late nineteenth-century British woman writer Rosa Nouchette Carey (1840–1909), available as an English-language ebook from Project Gutenberg. Carey wrote prolifically for a female readership, producing domestic, moral, and coming-of-age fiction that gently depicts the everyday life, courtship, and moral choices of middle-class Victorian families; this novel continues that narrative tradition and serves as a useful sample of nineteenth-century English popular women's fiction. The Project Gutenberg edition is clearly formatted and fully searchable, making it especially suitable for scholars doing close reading against the original text or for use as lengthy English reading material. Readers should note that the work bears clear marks of its era, and its value judgments and views of gender are remote from those of the present; it is best examined through the lens of literary and social history rather than treated as a guide to contemporary life. For readers who prefer fast-paced plots, the novel moves slowly and requires some patience.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literature students and scholars studying nineteenth-century British popular women's fiction
Advanced English learners seeking to build reading stamina with a full-length English novel
Readers who enjoy slow-paced Victorian domestic and moral narratives
Digital humanities enthusiasts interested in Project Gutenberg's public-domain ebook resources

Not a good fit for

Contemporary genre-fiction readers who prefer strong plots, fast pacing, or suspenseful twists
Beginners with weak English who would struggle to finish a nineteenth-century English novel
Readers sensitive to Victorian gender attitudes who may find them uncomfortable

Reading tips

Begin with the bibliographic information and chapter titles on the Project Gutenberg page to form a sense of the overall structure before starting the text.
Read one or two chapters at a fixed time each day, keeping a vocabulary notebook for idiomatic nineteenth-century English expressions.
Consult background material on Victorian family and women's life alongside the novel to better understand the characters' motives.
After finishing, write a short review outlining the differences between the author's value stance and a contemporary perspective.

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

How difficult is the English in this book?

The original is late nineteenth-century English, with long sentences and period vocabulary, making it harder overall than contemporary popular fiction. It suits readers with at least CET-4-level reading ability who are used to long English texts; beginners are advised to use an annotated edition or build up some experience with original texts first.

What are the practical features of the Project Gutenberg edition?

Project Gutenberg offers free public-domain ebooks, and this book is its English original text, freely available and convenient for full-text searching, copying and quoting, and offline reading. The formatting is mainly plain text and lacks the notes and introductions of modern editions, so scholars should verify edition details themselves when citing it.

Can I read this book without knowing the author, Carey?

Yes. The novel can be read on its own and does not depend on the author's other works. To grasp the text better, you may first learn about the general outline of nineteenth-century British women's fiction and the tradition Carey worked in, which will make clearer what she is writing and why.

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About the author

Carey, Rosa Nouchette, 1840-1909 Author

Rosa Nouchette Carey (1840–1909) was a nineteenth-century British novelist known for coming-of-age stories written for girls and young women. Her works usually center on family life and the moral choices and emotional trials that girls face as they enter adulthood, in a gentle, realistic style with a clear didactic and inspirational purpose. The library holds eleven of her works, including Lover or Friend, Our Bessie, Wee Wifie, Uncle Max, Herb of Grace, Esther: A Book for Girls, Doctor Luttrell's First Patient and Not Like Other Girls, showing that her subject matter concentrates on girls' growth and domestic ethics. Because public information is limited, details of her life cannot be given in full, but it is clear that her writing had some influence on the juvenile reading of her time and is often classed as inspirational coming-of-age fiction.