Clementina cover

Clementina

Rating 3.3
Word count
486K words
Chapters
49

Tags

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. Clementina by A. E. W. Mason. Author: Mason, A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley), 1865-1948. Language: English. Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature. Release Date: Oct 1, 2004

Editor's review

Clementina is a novel by A. E. W. Mason, an author known for plot construction and character suspense whose works often combine adventure and romance. This public-domain English literary text, released free by Project Gutenberg, is complete and readable, and serves as a good entry point to early twentieth-century British popular fiction. As you read, notice how the author advances the plot through dialogue and sets up suspense and turns—useful lessons for aspiring writers too. As an electronic text, it is easy to search and excerpt, making it suitable for book-club selections or classroom excerpts for discussion. Note that its language and narrative pacing bear the marks of its era; appreciate it with a sense of literary history rather than expecting the tightness of modern genre fiction.

Who it's for

A good fit for

  • Readers who enjoy early twentieth-century British fiction
  • Aspiring writers who want to study Mason's narrative technique
  • Book clubs and classes that need public-domain English texts

Not a good fit for

  • Readers who read only contemporary bestsellers
  • Beginners impatient with old-fashioned English narrative pacing

Reading tips

  1. Learn about the author's life and era before starting, to establish a historical frame
  2. Mark plot turns as you read, then review the techniques of suspense construction afterward
  3. Choose a chapter to read aloud or discuss in a book club and experience how dialogue drives the narrative

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
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49

FAQ

Is this a detective novel?
Mason did write detective fiction, but Clementina is closer to a novel with adventure and romance elements and should not be simply classed as detective fiction. Readers can treat it as one part of the author's varied output and focus on character relationships and plot development.
Does the public-domain ebook have notes?
Project Gutenberg editions generally preserve the original text and usually add no modern notes. If you need background explanation, consult the author's biography or literary histories alongside your reading to fill in the period context.

Comments

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About the author

Alfred Edward Woodley Mason Author · British · 1865–1948

A. E. W. Mason (Alfred Edward Woodley Mason, 1865–1948) was a British novelist and playwright born in Camberwell, London, and educated at Trinity College, Oxford. His work spans adventure, detective fiction, and romance; his best-known novel, The Four Feathers, is celebrated for its conflict between battlefield duty and honour. His French detective Inspector Hanaud is regarded as one of the prototypes for Hercule Poirot, and such mystery works as At the Villa Rose and The Affair at the Semiramis Hotel also drew readers' attention. Mason served as a Liberal MP in the House of Commons and worked in naval intelligence during the First World War, experiences that lent a realistic texture to his narratives. Twenty of his works are held in the collection; public information is limited, yet his writing retains a place in the history of popular and detective fiction.

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