Deaf and Dumb!

Elizabeth SandhamProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.5

Word count: 70K words
Chapters: 7

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.Deaf and Dumb! by Elizabeth SandhamAuthor: Sandham, Elizabeth,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Mar 17, 2013

Editor's review

Deaf and Dumb! is a work of juvenile literature by Elizabeth Sandham, a public-domain title within Project Gutenberg's free eBook collection. The book centers on characters with hearing and speech impairments—a rare subject in early children's literature—offering readers a window into how nineteenth-century society viewed disabled people. Its value lies not in intricate plotting but in the rarity of its subject and its historical context: through the characters' circumstances, readers can observe period attitudes toward the education of the deaf and dumb, family responses, and moral expectations. The prose bears a strong mark of its era and is well suited as supplementary material for studying the history of children's literature, the history of disability writing, or English reading practice. It is best read as a historical text rather than a contemporary story: note the narrator's moralizing tone and understand the characterizations in light of the publication date. For readers interested in how public-domain eBooks preserve early English children's literature, this short book offers a concrete, lightweight sample.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in nineteenth-century English children's literature and disability themes
Students and researchers studying the history of disability writing or special education
Learners seeking short public-domain English texts for reading practice
Content curators focused on Project Gutenberg's public-domain resources

Not a good fit for

General readers expecting the pacing and plot tension of contemporary children's fiction
Readers seeking modern disability-rights perspectives and science-based education
Beginners who need a Chinese translation or a bilingual edition

Reading tips

Read the preface and character introductions first to establish the historical background before the main text
Note the narrator's evaluative language toward deaf characters as you read, for later analysis
Read alongside nineteenth-century sources on special education to avoid judging the past by present standards
Write a short review afterward identifying which attitudes reflect the limits of their time

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 suitable as an ordinary storybook for children?

Not really as a contemporary children's story. It is a nineteenth-century English work of juvenile literature with a pronounced moralizing tone, and its portrayal of deaf characters is shaped by the attitudes of its time. If a child is to read it, an adult should read it first, select appropriate passages, and supply historical context so the child does not mistake the book's attitudes for modern views.

How difficult is the English?

The original is nineteenth-century English, with sentence structures and vocabulary older than contemporary young-adult fare, and some moralizing passages are long. Readers with intermediate English who are used to public-domain classics can attempt it; beginners would do better with annotations or shorter public-domain texts first.

Why is this book in Project Gutenberg?

Project Gutenberg provides free eBooks whose copyright has entered the public domain. Elizabeth Sandham's works are in the public domain, and this text was prepared and released by the platform, so readers can access the full text free of charge. Its inclusion serves to preserve early English children's literature rather than to offer a contemporary bestseller.

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About the author

Elizabeth Sandham Author · British

Elizabeth Sandham was a British children's author active between 1799 and 1825 and one of the most prolific writers of children's books in the early nineteenth century, publishing on average more than one work a year. Her writing was largely moral and religious in theme and addressed to young readers. Her representative works include The Perambulations of a Bee and a Butterfly, The Adopted Daughter: A Tale for Young Persons, and Deaf and Dumb! Among them, The Twin Sisters was reprinted several times, and her works were mainly published by the children's publisher John Harris. Public information about her birth and death dates and personal life is limited, and three of her works are currently held in the collection.