Blundell's Improvement

William Wymark JacobsProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.4

Word count: 23K words
Chapters: 3

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.Blundell's Improvement by W. W. JacobsAuthor: Jacobs, W. W. (William Wymark), 1863-1943,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Apr 1, 2004

Editor's review

Also by W. W. Jacobs, *Blundell's Improvement* is available as a free ebook from Project Gutenberg. Jacobs's short stories often draw on small schemes and minor misunderstandings in everyday life, moving the plot forward through brisk dialogue and typically ending with a wry twist—a pattern this work follows. As a public-domain text, its value lies in offering an authentic English short-story reading experience at almost no cost: it suits English reading practice and also lets literary readers observe how a short story works structurally—how setup, misunderstanding, and ending fit together. Being short, it can be finished in one or two sittings, and key dialogue can be revisited to see how the author builds character in just a few words. Note that this edition is the English original; the ebook is mainly bibliographic information with no notes, so deeper study requires other reference materials.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy short, punchy English stories with a twist ending
English learners who want to practise reading and retelling short stories
Literature lovers interested in the British comic short-story tradition
Readers who prefer free public-domain ebooks they can pick up anytime

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting long plots and grand themes
Beginners who need a Chinese translation or bilingual text
Readers who require detailed notes and a scholarly introduction

Reading tips

Read the story straight through the first time; on the second pass, mark the dialogue and watch how the characters probe each other.
After reading, write out the twist ending in your own words to train your sense of short-story structure.
Read it alongside other Jacobs stories and compare how their humour works.

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 work suitable for English beginners?

The work is in the original English, with period colloquialisms and dialogue. Intermediate readers with basic grammar and a reasonable vocabulary will read it more smoothly. Beginners can first read through for the gist with a dictionary, then go back to the dialogue, without needing to understand every slang expression at once.

Why does the ebook information consist mostly of bibliographic data?

Project Gutenberg pages mainly record metadata such as author, language, category, and release date to identify and catalogue public-domain ebooks; they are not content summaries or introductions. Readers can open the text file to read the work itself, while background information must be sought elsewhere.

Do I need to know the author's other works before reading this?

No. This is a standalone short story that can be read directly. If its humour appeals to you, seek out the author's other stories for comparison, and his habitual handling of dialogue and endings will become easier to see.

Comments

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About the author

William Wymark Jacobs Author · British · 1863–1943

William Wymark Jacobs (1863–1943) was a British short-story writer, born in London in 1863 and died there in 1943. In his early years he lived around the Thames docks and was familiar with the lives of sailors and dockworkers, which led him to write a great many humorous sea stories, often in a light and witty tone. His best-known work, The Monkey's Paw, is a classic horror short story included in The Lady of the Barge (1902); noted for its tight suspense and sudden twists, it is still widely anthologized in horror collections. The library holds 109 of his works, including The Lady of the Barge and Others, Ship's Company, A Tiger's Skin, Captains All, and Night Watches; his common category is inspirational growth. Public information is limited and details of his life are largely unavailable, yet his fiction is distinctive in subject, blending humor with horror, and has had a lasting influence on later short-story writing.