Dave Fearless and the Cave of Mystery or, Adrift on the Pacific

Project GutenbergProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.8
Word count
252K words
Chapters
26

Tags

English Originals Foreign Literature Suspense ThrillerCave MysteryAdventure JourneyPacific DriftClever EscapeBook SeriesBoyhood AdventureYouth Reading

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.Dave Fearless and the Cave of Mystery; or, Adrift on the Pacific by Roy RockwoodAuthor: ,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Jan 21, 2013

Editor's review

Dave Fearless and the Cave of Mystery; or, Adrift on the Pacific is a juvenile adventure novel released free by Project Gutenberg, credited to Roy Rockwood, and belonging to an early series of young readers' fiction. The story centers on drifting on the Pacific and a cave mystery, with a brisk pace and short chapters that typify the early twentieth-century adventure novel's celebration of courage, resourcefulness, and comradeship. Its value lies more in its significance as a specimen of genre fiction: it shows how juvenile adventure stories organize suspense, set up perilous situations, and shape a protagonist, and it also offers a window into the maritime imagination and narrative conventions of the period. The characterization is relatively flat and the plot relies on coincidence, so it feels dated by today's standards, yet it remains interesting as light reading or as material for studying popular literature. The English is not difficult and suits reading in short stretches.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read chapter by chapter and pause at the end of each to review the suspense, which helps you better appreciate the pacing of a series adventure.
  2. As you read, note how the protagonist solves dilemmas, and keep comparative notes with contemporary juvenile adventure stories.
  3. For the English original, read through the plot first, then revisit unfamiliar words and nautical terms, balancing enjoyment with language learning.

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

FAQ

Is this a standalone story or part of a series? Judging by the title and the naming of the protagonist, it is one of a series of adventure stories featuring Dave Fearless. This installment centers on Pacific drifting and a mysterious cave, and its plot is relatively self-contained, though its character relationships and setup bear the continuity typical of series fiction.
How difficult is the English, and is it suitable for middle school students? Overall it is fairly easy narrative English, with short sentences and a good deal of dialogue, though it contains some nautical and old-fashioned expressions. Middle school students with basic English reading ability can try it; there is no need to look up every unfamiliar word—following the plot first is more efficient.
Do the adventure plot elements feel outdated today? Some passages rely on coincidence and the characters are somewhat stock types, so it does feel dated by contemporary eyes. But precisely for that reason it reflects the narrative conventions of early juvenile adventure fiction, which makes it more interesting to read as a specimen of genre literature; there is no need to judge it by the standards of the modern novel.

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About the author

Project Gutenberg Author

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.