Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 715

VariousProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.8
Word count
100K words
Chapters
11

Tags

Other English Originals General KnowledgeScience EnlightenmentIllustrated GuideMagazine SelectionPopular NarrativeSocial ObservationVictorian Era

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. Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 715 by Various. Author: Various. Language: English. Class: AP: General Works: Periodicals. Release Date: Aug 14, 2015

Editor's review

This is a digitized reproduction of issue No. 715 of the Victorian general-interest periodical Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, released free by Project Gutenberg. Its value lies not in any single famous piece but in the authentic picture it gives of popular reading matter in the mid-to-late nineteenth century: short popular-science pieces, serialized fiction, essays and reviews, and practical knowledge all mixed together, letting readers see directly how ordinary households of the time obtained entertainment and information at once. The prose carries a distinct period flavor, the pieces are short, and the sections change frequently, making it suitable source material for studying Victorian periodical culture, popular science communication, or English journalistic style. As a historical text, some scientific ideas and formulations are outdated and should be read with historical perspective. Recommended for readers interested in nineteenth-century English periodicals, the history of science, and popular culture, and also suitable as short extensive-reading material for English learners.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read by section, starting with a short science piece or a serialized novel to get a feel for the journal's mixed rhythm.
  2. Mark unfamiliar historical terms first, and look up the background only after finishing a piece.
  3. Read alongside nineteenth-century British social history sources to understand the text's period context.
  4. Use it as one short extensive-reading piece per day; there is no need to read the whole issue through.

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.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11

FAQ

Is this issue the complete original publication? This is an electronic text prepared by Project Gutenberg from the original publication, containing the text of issue No. 715. Original illustrations, advertisements, and page layout are usually not fully preserved, so the reading experience differs from the paper original and is better suited to attention to the text and style.
Can I read it without background knowledge of the nineteenth century? Yes, but a certain level of English is needed. The text involves the scientific ideas, social topics, and literary allusions of the time, and without background some passages will feel unfamiliar. It is best to start with the short science pieces and essays, and look things up when you meet historical details you do not understand; do not expect to understand everything at once.
Is it suitable for learning English? It suits intermediate and advanced learners for extensive reading. The sentence structure has features of nineteenth-century written English and the vocabulary is fairly formal, which can help familiarize you with historical registers; but it is not a model to imitate for modern spoken English or examination writing, and you should distinguish period usage from contemporary expression as you read.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Various Author

Various is not a real person but a collective attribution used in book cataloging and databases for works with multiple authors, commonly applied to anthologies, compilations, or publications with too many contributors to list individually. On this Chinese book site, this attribution covers as many as 3,387 titles, spanning encyclopedic entries, historical documents, and trial records. Representative works include several volumes of the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the record of the trial of the major war criminals before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Available public information is limited: nationality, birth and death dates, and common categories are not clearly recorded, making it difficult to summarize a unified writing style or personal biography. Readers should understand it as a cataloging convention rather than a single author.