Brother Copas

Quiller-Couch, Arthur, 1863-1944Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.5

Word count: 363K words
Chapters: 37

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.Brother Copas by Arthur Quiller-CouchAuthor: Quiller-Couch, Arthur, 1863-1944,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Apr 3, 2007

Editor's review

Brother Copas is a novel by the English writer and scholar Arthur Quiller-Couch, offered as a free eBook by Project Gutenberg. Quiller-Couch is best known for his literary criticism and essays, and his fiction tends to carry a gentle humor and a fine eye for human manners—this work is no exception. The story centers on the title character, moving at an unhurried pace, with characterization built largely through personality and dialogue; it rewards slow reading in a quiet setting. For readers curious about the shape of English fiction in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, or interested in public-domain English classics, the book offers an easy entry point: moderate length, language that is not overly difficult, and free availability. It is best approached as a sketch of manners—attending to the narrator's tone and the subtle shifts in relationships rather than pressing for dramatic conflict. As a public-domain electronic edition, it works better as supplementary reading in English literature than as a first choice for beginners.

Who it's for

A good fit for

English learners seeking low-cost access to public-domain British fiction
Literary readers interested in late nineteenth-century English manners and customs
Readers who enjoy slow-paced novels with gentle humor and dialogue-driven characterization
Literature students needing public-domain English texts for textual analysis practice

Not a good fit for

Genre-fiction readers seeking strong plotting and fast pacing
Beginners who are not yet proficient in English and need annotations and introductions
Readers hoping for detailed author biography and background commentary

Reading tips

Read a chapter or two first to get used to the narrative rhythm and language style, then decide whether to read straight through or selectively.
Keep pen and paper handy to note character relationships and shifts in tone in dialogue, which helps in understanding personality.
Read alongside Quiller-Couch's literary criticism to appreciate the difference between his fiction and his criticism.
For English study, choose two or three passages per chapter for close reading and retelling practice; there is no need to look up every word.

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?

It is about the usual difficulty of early twentieth-century British fiction: sentences tend to be long but grammatically regular, with few obscure words. Anyone with a basic grounding in English reading can attempt it; customs and allusions can be skimmed without harming comprehension of the main thread.

Is the Gutenberg edition different from a print edition?

Project Gutenberg provides electronic texts of public-domain works, based on editions that have entered the public domain, and usually without modern publishers' introductions, annotations, or revisions. The reading experience is close to the original text but lacks supplementary material.

Do I need to know the author's background before reading?

Not necessarily. Quiller-Couch is known for literary criticism and essays, but his fiction can be read on its own. Knowing that he was a Cambridge scholar who wrote literary criticism helps in appreciating the book's interest in dialogue and character portrayal, but it is not needed to follow the story.

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About the author

Quiller-Couch, Arthur, 1863-1944 Author

Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863–1944) was an English writer with a substantial body of work, of which 41 titles are held in this collection. His writing covers a wide range: essays on the craft of reading and writing such as On the Art of Reading and On the Art of Writing, and narrative works set against the sea, winter, and the fireside, including The Roll-Call of the Reef, I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales, Two Sides of the Face: Midwinter Tales, and The Laird's Luck and Other Fireside Tales. He also retold fairy tales from the Old French in The Sleeping Beauty and other fairy tales from the Old French, and wrote From a Cornish Window, a book that reflects his attention to the Cornish landscape and local life. Public information is limited and biographical details are hard to verify, but the surviving works show a graceful, unhurried prose that combines the reflective habits of an essayist with a storyteller's pleasure in narrative, leaving its mark on English prose and short fiction.