David Elginbrod

MacDonald, George, 1824-1905Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.7

Word count: 965K words
Chapters: 97

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.David Elginbrod by George MacDonaldAuthor: MacDonald, George, 1824-1905,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Aug 1, 2000

Editor's review

David Elginbrod is one of George MacDonald's early novels, a work of Victorian English literature tinged with intellectual exploration. Writing as a minister, poet, and novelist, MacDonald often interweaves everyday narrative with spiritual inquiry. The book serves as a sample of the diverse landscape of nineteenth-century English fiction: rather than pursuing suspense like a tightly plotted popular novel, it advances through character relationships and inner change, and its language carries the flavour of its era. For readers studying MacDonald's creative development or the relationship between religion and literature in the Victorian period, the book has reference value. Read it at a leisurely pace, attend to the clashes of ideas in the characters' dialogue, and note the narrator's descriptions of nature and faith. The Project Gutenberg edition is easy to search and cite, making it suitable for reading as an electronic text or as course supplementary material.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Students and scholars of Victorian English fiction
Literary readers interested in George MacDonald's work
Teachers who need public-domain English e-texts as course supplements
Readers who enjoy slow-paced character-driven narrative and intellectual dialogue

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking strong plot and fast-paced suspense
Beginners unaccustomed to the feel of nineteenth-century English fiction
Readers who only want short stories or poetry

Reading tips

Read the opening chapters first, and continue once you have adjusted to the narrative pace and period language.
Keep pen and paper to record character relationships and key dialogues, so you can revisit the threads of ideas.
Read alongside biographical material on MacDonald and background on the Victorian period for comparison.
If using it for a course, prioritise passages of character confrontation as discussion material.

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 suitable for English beginners to read directly?

Not really. It is a nineteenth-century English novel, with sentence patterns and vocabulary marked by their era, and a rather slow narrative pace. English beginners can easily lose the thread in long sentences and dialogues of ideas; it is better to have some experience reading English fiction first, or to use an annotated edition as support.

What are the features of the Project Gutenberg edition?

Project Gutenberg provides public-domain electronic texts that are free to access, search, and cite. This edition is the original English text, suitable for readers to download and read themselves or to use as a teaching supplement; it contains no modern editorial notes, so unfamiliar expressions require a dictionary or background material.

Do I need to know MacDonald's other works before reading this book?

No. The book can be read independently, but knowing that MacDonald was both a minister and a writer, and often concerned with questions of faith and human nature, will help in understanding what the dialogues point to. If time is limited, read the opening and the chapters where character relationships are concentrated, then decide whether to read the whole book.

Comments

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About the author

MacDonald, George, 1824-1905 Author

George MacDonald (1824–1905) was a Scottish author known for his fairy tales, fantasy novels and religious sermons. This library holds 68 of his works, including The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, At the Back of the North Wind, Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women, Sir Gibbie and the three series of Unspoken Sermons. His fairy tales often centre on children, weaving adventure with questions of morality and faith in plain, imaginative prose, while his fantasy works are regarded as forerunners of modern fantasy literature and have influenced later writers of the genre. Public information is limited, so no biographical details are speculated here; his works alone show him to be skilled in both storytelling and spiritual reflection, writing for children and adults alike.