Danes, Saxons and Normans; or, Stories of Our Ancestors

John George EdgarProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
453K words
Chapters
46

Tags

English Originals World History Historical ReappraisalMilitary StrategyPortrait GalleryAdventure JourneyPower GameHeroismPatriotismPopular ExplanationMiddle AgesNational Origin

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.Danes, Saxons and Normans; or, Stories of our ancestors by John G. EdgarAuthor: Edgar, John G. (John George), 1834-1864,Language: English, Class: DA: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Great Britain, Ireland, Central Europe, Release Date: Aug 16, 2012

Editor's review

This book is a popular history of early Britain by John G. Edgar, tracing in narrative form how the Danes, Saxons and Normans successively entered Britain. The author weaves genealogies, battles and anecdotes about historical figures into highly readable stories, making it a suitable primer for understanding the formative period of early medieval England. The public-domain electronic edition provided by Project Gutenberg is easy to search and cite, and readers can progress through it in short instalments on a commute or before bed. Note that the book was written in the nineteenth century and carries the literary flourishes and value judgements of its time; where source criticism is concerned, it should be read alongside modern scholarship. Overall it is more a bridge into early British history than a final scholarly verdict, and a relaxed starting point for readers interested in family origins, place names and dynastic change.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Start with the table of contents and chapter titles, then dip into chapters that follow figures you find interesting.
  2. After each chapter, note the date, people and events in one sentence to help link the narrative together.
  3. When something differs from textbook accounts, mark it and check modern works on British history for comparison.
  4. Read with a map at hand, matching place names to battle sites to deepen your impression.

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

FAQ

Is this book suitable for readers with no background in British history? It can serve as an introduction, but the density of names and places is high, so it helps to know the basic timeline of Britain after the Roman withdrawal first. You need not remember every name; grasp the sequence of the three forces—Danes, Saxons and Normans—and look up unfamiliar places on a map as you go.
Does the book differ from modern historical research? The book was written in the nineteenth century, its narrative is literary, and some anecdotes and causal explanations bear the mark of their era. It is good for building an overall impression and an interest in reading, but for specific facts, dates and sources, refer to modern scholarship and reliable primary material.
What should I keep in mind when reading the electronic edition? This is a public-domain English ebook from Project Gutenberg, set mainly in plain text without modern notes or illustrations. Use reading software with dictionary lookup and bookmarks; when you meet archaic spellings or variant forms of names, judge from context and look up the modern equivalent if needed.

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

John George Edgar Author · British · 1834–1864

John George Edgar (1834–1864) was a British writer. Born into a clergyman's family in Berwickshire, he began his career in business in Liverpool and travelled in the West Indies before turning to literature. Familiar with early English and Scottish history, he wrote historical biographies and historical story novels mainly for young readers. He served as the first editor of Every Boy's Magazine and left about twenty works in all. Representative titles include The Boy Crusaders and The Wars of the Roses, along with historical books on the age of Louis IX, the Norman Conquest and the story of Magna Carta. Blending historical fact with adventurous narrative in accessible language, his works sought to cultivate young readers' interest in history and had some influence on nineteenth-century British juvenile historical reading.