Backlog Studies

Warner, Charles Dudley, 1829-1900Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.5

Word count: 290K words
Chapters: 29

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.Backlog Studies by Charles Dudley WarnerAuthor: Warner, Charles Dudley, 1829-1900,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Oct 10, 2004

Editor's review

This collection of essays comes from the American essayist Charles Dudley Warner and belongs to his lighter, more casual prose. The pieces revolve around everyday observation, reading, and reflections on life, written in an unhurried tone that carries the leisure and self-reflection characteristic of nineteenth-century American essays. It is not a systematic treatise that demands continuous reading; it works better as a bedside or commute book, where you can open to any piece and slip right in. For readers who want to understand the American essay tradition, or who wish to step away for a while from fast-paced reading, this book offers a slow, clear-voiced option. The public-domain electronic edition is easy to search and carry, and also serves as an accessible introduction to reading English essays. Note that the pieces carry their era's context, and some topics feel distant from today's readers; it helps to read them as a kind of historical observation of daily life.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy nineteenth-century American essays and life sketches
Learners who want short English essays for fragmented time
Readers curious about the American essay tradition and familiar writing

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting tightly plotted or strongly narrative fiction
Researchers needing systematic literary history or scholarly annotation

Reading tips

Read one or two pieces a day, in no particular order, and keep the pace relaxed.
When unfamiliar cultural background appears, skip ahead first and return after finishing the piece.
Keep a notebook for lines or observations that strike you.

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 book suitable for English beginners?

The language is generally clear, but as nineteenth-century essays the sentence patterns and cultural background still pose a threshold for beginners. It is better attempted after reaching an intermediate reading level, or read gradually with a dictionary and an annotated edition.

Do I need to read it in order?

No. The pieces are relatively independent and suited to reading at random. Start with titles that interest you from the table of contents and treat it as a bedside collection to revisit.

Comments

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About the author

Warner, Charles Dudley, 1829-1900 Author

Charles Dudley Warner (1829–1900) was an American writer and editor, with fifty-seven of his works held in this catalog. His subjects are notably wide-ranging: there are familiar essays on gardening and everyday leisure such as My Summer in a Garden, a study of a fellow writer in Washington Irving, and travel accounts of foreign places, including In the Levant, My Winter on the Nile and Our Italy, the last concerning Italy. The chapters associated with The Gilded Age indicate that he also took part in writing on social themes. The catalog classifies him under inspirational growth, suggesting that some of his works carry a tone of counsel and self-reflection. Public information is limited, so rather than dwelling on biographical detail, readers may begin with his essays and travel writings and appreciate their easy, unhurried style and close observation.