Crankisms

Matthewman, Lisle de Vaux, 1867-Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

1.8

Word count: 13K words
Chapters: 2

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.Crankisms by Lisle de Vaux MatthewmanAuthor: Matthewman, Lisle de Vaux, 1867-,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Dec 5, 2006

Editor's review

Crankisms is a work by Lisle de Vaux Matthewman (born 1867), classified under American and Canadian literature and released by Project Gutenberg as a free ebook. Judging from the title and classification, it is closer to a collection of short pieces marked by personal style and wit, suited to readers interested in old-fashioned English essays and epigrammatic expression. Project Gutenberg was founded by Michael Hart in 1971 and was the earliest provider of ebooks, which makes this book part of the public-domain digital reading corpus. It is best read as light material for spare moments, focusing on the pleasure of the language and the author's angle on the ways of the world rather than looking for a continuous plot. Since the available information gives only bibliographic details and says nothing about the individual pieces, readers should come to it in a spirit of exploration and sampling, treating it as a window onto the American familiar-essay tradition of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and as a source of short sentences and aphorisms for English writing.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy aphorisms, essays, and witty short pieces
Writers looking to build a store of English short sentences and epigrams
Readers interested in the older American familiar-essay tradition
People used to reading public-domain ebooks in fragments

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking a full plot and character arcs
Those who need modern annotations to follow the text
Readers with little patience for old-fashioned English

Reading tips

Read a few pieces a day and jot down lines you like.
Copy interesting expressions into a notebook and imitate them in your own sentences.
After finishing, pick three pieces and write a short response in Chinese.
Take turns reading aloud with a friend to feel the rhythm of the language.

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 Crankisms a novel?

Judging from the title and its literary classification, it is closer to a collection of short pieces or epigrammatic writing than to a novel with a continuous plot. Read it as light material you can pick up and put down at will, focusing on the pleasure of the language and the author's angle on the ways of the world rather than following characters' fates as you would in a novel.

What level of English is needed to read this book?

The work is an old English original whose expression carries the style of its period, so a vocabulary of at least intermediate level is advisable before attempting it. If you get stuck often, slow down, look up words paragraph by paragraph, or start with bilingual materials as a bridge. It works better as language practice material than as casual entertainment.

Does the ebook have annotations or an introduction?

Public-domain ebooks from Project Gutenberg usually present the original text and generally do not include modern annotations or introductions. Readers who want background can look up information on the author and the period themselves, or read alongside a literary history, to better understand the language habits and cultural context.

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About the author

Matthewman, Lisle de Vaux, 1867- Author · 1867

Lisle de Vaux Matthewman (born 1867) was an English-language author active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, though public records of his life and nationality are limited. It is confirmed only that he was born in 1867 and that one work of his, Crankisms, is held in the collection. Judging from the title and format, the book belongs to the genre of maxims, aphorisms, or short essays, marked by wordplay and irony and presenting the author's observations on human nature and social manners in brief, pointed entries. Such collections were popular in British and American publishing at the time, often read for casual browsing and quotation. Because biographical material is scarce, his education, career, and social circle cannot be reliably established, and the actual circulation and later reputation of his work are difficult to assess. On the whole, he is remembered as an essayist and aphorist through a single humorous collection, and his style favors wit and verbal ingenuity; the book may interest readers of late nineteenth-century English short-form literature.