Fardorougha, The Miser

William CarletonProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.0

Word count: 645K words
Chapters: 65

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.Fardorougha, The Miser by William CarletonAuthor: Carleton, William, 1794-1869,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Jun 7, 2005

Editor's review

Fardorougha, The Miser is a novel by William Carleton set in the Irish countryside; its title character is notorious for miserliness, and the story unfolds around family, property, and emotional conflict. Carleton excels at portraying characters through dialect and everyday scenes, and the trait of miserliness gives the narrative a dimension of moral observation and psychological depiction; readers can see the family ethics and class pressures of nineteenth-century Irish rural society. As a free Project Gutenberg eBook, it is easy to obtain and suited to extensive reading of the English original or as a supplement to literature courses. While reading, do not rush to judge the characters; note how miserliness affects parent-child relations and community judgment, and how the narrator wavers between sympathy and satire. The pace is slow and the dialogue strongly regional, requiring some patience, but precisely for that reason the texture of regional fiction comes through more clearly.

Who it's for

A good fit for

English readers interested in Irish regional fiction and character portrayal
Literature students studying nineteenth-century family ethics and attitudes toward property
Readers who need free English eBooks for extensive reading or classroom supplements
Enthusiasts who can accept a slow pace and dialect dialogue and enjoy close reading of character psychology

Not a good fit for

Popular readers who prefer fast-paced plots and strong dramatic conflict
Beginners with little experience of reading English originals who find dialect dialogue difficult
Readers uninterested in historical rural subjects and morally instructive narrative

Reading tips

Learn about Carleton's background and Irish rural society first; the main text is then easier to enter.
Keep character notes centred on "miserliness," recording its effects on family relations and community judgment.
Read dialect dialogue through once for tone rather than pausing on every word; return to details on a second pass.
After finishing, compare with other Irish regional novels, contrasting character portrayal and narrative perspective.

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 the book's theme simply a criticism of miserliness?

Not entirely. Miserliness is the central character trait, but the narrative also involves family relations, attitudes toward property, and the evaluative mechanisms of the rural community. Readers can see the characters waver between moral pressure and emotion, rather than a one-dimensional critique of character.

Can I understand it without background knowledge of Ireland?

You can read it, but understanding will be reduced. It is advisable to read a concise introduction to nineteenth-century Irish society first, especially land, family, and class relations; dialect and descriptions of customs will then be easier to grasp.

Is this edition suitable for academic citation?

The Project Gutenberg edition is convenient for reading and searching but usually lacks scholarly annotation and authoritative textual criticism. For formal citation in papers, check scholarly print editions or publisher editions and note the source of the electronic text used.

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About the author

William Carleton Author · Irish · 1794–1869

William Carleton (1794–1869) was an Irish novelist born to a farming family in Prillisk, County Tyrone. He made his name with Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, and Irish rural life remained the core of his writing. Novels such as Fardorougha the Miser and The Black Prophet depict poverty, land issues and famine in the Irish countryside with realistic detail and a critical eye. Drawing on the conflicts among peasants, landlords and local agents, his works combine folk observation with moral instruction and are often classed as inspirational and coming-of-age literature. He is a representative figure of nineteenth-century Irish regional fiction, and 20 of his works are held in this collection.