Capricious Caroline

Rowlands, Effie Adelaide, 1866-1936Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.9

Word count: 490K words
Chapters: 50

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.Capricious Caroline by Effie Adelaide RowlandsAuthor: Rowlands, Effie Adelaide, 1866-1936,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Oct 30, 2010

Editor's review

Capricious Caroline is a novel by the English writer Effie Adelaide Rowlands, belonging to the popular sentimental narrative tradition she excelled in. The word "capricious" in the title points to the heroine's willful and changeable temperament, and the story revolves around her emotional choices and personal relationships. It carries the typical appeal of popular fiction from the late Victorian to the Edwardian era: attention to character and temperament, family and courtship entanglements, and dramatic plot twists. As a public-domain work included in Project Gutenberg, it is better suited as a sample for understanding the landscape of popular English fiction and the writing of female images at the time than as serious literature aiming at profound social critique. When reading, note how the author uses character flaws to drive the plot, and how popular fiction makes moral judgments about female willfulness—this is quite helpful for understanding the reading tastes of that era.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy late Victorian popular English fiction
Scholars studying female images and courtship narratives of the late nineteenth century
Readers who want light original English texts for reading practice
Those interested in classic sentimental stories and character portrayal

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking modern pacing and strong plotting
Readers hoping for profound social critique or experimental writing
Readers impatient with old-fashioned English expression and lengthy narration

Reading tips

First learn about the author Rowlands's era and the popular fiction tradition, then enter the story.
Pay attention to how the heroine's "capricious" character creates conflict and twists; take simple notes on character relationships.
Read it alongside other novels about women from the same period to observe similarities and differences in the portrayal of female images.
For English reading, proceed chapter by chapter, and after each chapter summarize the plot and character changes in one or two sentences.

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

Who wrote this book, and what genre is it?

The author is the English writer Effie Adelaide Rowlands (1866–1936), and this book is a popular sentimental novel she wrote. The story revolves around a heroine of changeable temperament and belongs to the family and courtship themes common in the late Victorian to Edwardian era, with attention to character temperament and plot twists.

Is Caroline in the title a positive character?

The title uses "capricious" to describe Caroline, suggesting a willful and changeable personality; the author does not simply portray her as a flawless figure. Her choices both drive the plot and carry the moral judgments about female willfulness typical of popular fiction of the time. A specific assessment requires close reading of the text, and one should not presume good or evil labels.

Is this edition suitable for academic citation?

This is a public-domain English e-book released by Project Gutenberg; the text is freely available and searchable, making it suitable as a reading base text for popular literature research. However, this edition has no modern textual criticism or annotations, so for formal citation one should verify page numbers and publication information against an authoritative edition.

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About the author

Rowlands, Effie Adelaide, 1866-1936 Author · British · 1866–1936

Effie Adelaide Rowlands (1866–1936) was a British writer of popular fiction. Public information about her life is limited, and what can be confirmed concerns mainly her creative orientation and the character of her works. Her novels often take love, family and country life as their subjects, unfolding emotional entanglements within everyday settings in a gentle tone that appealed to the reading tastes of ordinary readers of her time. Her representative work is Capricious Caroline, whose very title suggests the importance of character portrayal in her narratives. On the whole, Rowlands belongs among writers of popular fiction known for domestic and romantic themes, and her works reflect the common concerns with courtship, marriage and rural life in British popular literature from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century.