Curious Epitaphs

Project GutenbergProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.7

Word count: 271K words
Chapters: 28

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.Curious Epitaphs by William AndrewsAuthor: ,Language: English, Class: PN: Language and Literatures: Literature: General, Criticism, Collections, Release Date: Apr 25, 2012

Editor's review

Curious Epitaphs is an English miscellany of epitaphs compiled by William Andrews and released by Project Gutenberg as a public-domain ebook. Its appeal lies in gathering the strange, witty, sentimental, or period-marked inscriptions found in churchyards, letting readers see ordinary people's attitudes toward life and death, their humor, and local customs through the compact form of the epitaph. The material is anecdotal and compilatory, suited to dipping into at random and useful as supplementary reading in cultural history, folklore, and the history of the English language. In terms of reading context, it is not a systematic academic work but rather a collection for casual reading: a few pages while traveling, before bed, or when looking for writing material all yield something. Note that this is a public-domain English text organized mainly as a compilation, without modern scholarly annotation; readers should treat it as entertaining material rather than rigorous research on the history of epitaphs.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Casual readers interested in epitaphs and churchyard culture
English learners seeking to build expression and period vocabulary through short inscriptions
Enthusiasts of folklore or local history looking for anecdotal material for reference

Not a good fit for

Researchers needing systematic academic discussion or detailed annotation
Readers expecting a complete scholarly history of epitaphs
Readers sensitive to death and churchyard subjects who prefer to avoid such content

Reading tips

Use the table of contents to jump to entries of interest rather than reading straight through.
Look up archaic expressions as you go, building familiarity with common patterns in English epitaphs.
Keep a notebook of excerpts, sorting interesting epitaphs by theme for later use in writing.

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 this book an academic research work?

It is not a strict academic monograph. It is closer to an entertaining compilation of epitaphs, focused on collecting and presenting curious inscriptions, with no modern scholarly annotation or systematic argument. It suits casual reading and reference for material.

What level of English is needed to read it?

Most of the inscriptions are short sentences, and the overall difficulty is not high, though there are archaic spellings and period expressions. Readers with intermediate English can attempt it, using a dictionary for obscure expressions.

Is it suitable for reading straight through?

Not really. The content is organized as entries rather than continuous narrative, and reading it at length can be tiring. It is better to dip in according to interest, reading a few entries at a time as a bedside or travel book.

Comments

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About the author

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Project Gutenberg is not a single author but a nonprofit digital library founded by Michael Hart in 1971 and one of the world's earliest free ebook platforms. It relies on volunteers to digitize, proofread, and freely distribute public-domain works and is now operated by the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Its collection contains 2,692 works, mainly religious texts, epics, and story collections, including the King James Bible and the Douay-Rheims volumes, the epic Mahabharata, a literal translation of the Arabian Nights, and Danish editions of the Old and New Testaments. Public information is limited, and its nature is closer to a public-interest compiling and dissemination body; these texts are open to the public, easy to consult and circulate, and have had a profound influence on the spread of ebooks and the preservation of public-domain resources.