Bart Ridgeley

Riddle, A. G. (Albert Gallatin), 1816-1902Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.3

Word count: 537K words
Chapters: 54

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.Bart Ridgeley by A. G. RiddleAuthor: Riddle, A. G. (Albert Gallatin), 1816-1902,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: May 1, 2004

Editor's review

Bart Ridgeley is a nineteenth-century American novel. Its author, Riddell, spent much of his career in law and public affairs, and his depiction of small-town life, characters' speech, and coming-of-age experience bears clear marks of its era. The novel centers on the title character, moves at an unhurried pace, and preserves the flavor of colloquial speech, letting readers sense the atmosphere and social intercourse of an older American interior. Its value lies more in what it documents of period and manners than in dramatic plotting, so it is best approached with an interest in the customs of the time. The original is a public-domain English text and quite long, suited to patient readers willing to read slowly; those seeking pure entertainment may find it slow-moving. As an electronic text, it can be paired with sectional notes to sort out characters and events.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in nineteenth-century American fiction and local customs
Learners willing to read long public-domain English works slowly
Literary enthusiasts studying old American social life

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer fast pacing and strong conflict
Beginners with limited English reading experience who need extensive annotation

Reading tips

Map the characters before entering the main text to avoid confusion amid the large cast.
Read a fixed number of chapters each day to keep the thread clear; avoid leaving it aside for long.
Make brief notes where the period background is unfamiliar, for easy review.

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 a good introduction to American literature?

It can serve as supplementary reading for understanding the nineteenth-century American novel, but its pace is slow and its background distant from today. If you are new to American literature, starting with shorter works and more concentrated plots will go more smoothly.

Do I need to know the author's background to read it?

Not in any systematic way, but knowing that the author had experience in law and public affairs helps you appreciate the close observation of small-town characters and social relations, bringing you closer to what the text attends to.

Any advice for reading the electronic edition?

Public-domain electronic texts come without ready annotation. Build your own character list and chapter summaries, and when a long passage of dialogue confuses you, mark who is speaking first and then reread closely; this noticeably lightens the load.

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About the author

Riddle, A. G. (Albert Gallatin), 1816-1902 Author

Riddle, A. G. (Albert Gallatin, 1816–1902) was a nineteenth-century American author whose life and literary output survive only sparsely in publicly available sources; the one work now confirmed is the novel Bart Ridgeley. Judging from extant bibliographic information, his writing belongs to the nineteenth-century American tradition of regional narrative, in which characters and plots unfold against a specific local setting and ordinary people confront the pressures and choices brought by social change. Owing to limited historical records, his education, career, personal associations, and the contemporary reception of his work cannot be examined in detail, and his biography should not be over-inferred. For readers today, Riddle's value lies chiefly in offering a sample of nineteenth-century American fiction; Bart Ridgeley, his surviving work, helps illuminate the narrative methods and language of regional fiction of the period and provides a marginal case for studying the literary landscape of the time.