First in the Field: A Story of New South Wales

Fenn, George Manville, 1831-1909Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
585K words
Chapters
59

Tags

English Originals Historical Fiction Adventure GrowthHeroismComing of AgeGrowing UpSelf-RelianceFrontier NarrativePopular NarrativeExotic CultureColonial SettlementAustralian Outback

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.First in the Field: A Story of New South Wales by George Manville FennAuthor: Fenn, George Manville, 1831-1909,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: May 4, 2007

Editor's review

This is a juvenile adventure novel by George Manville Fenn set in New South Wales, a classic boys' book among public-domain ebooks. Its value lies in combining the narrative pace of nineteenth-century British boys' fiction with the regional character of colonial Australia; readers follow the protagonist's outdoor experiences through an unfamiliar environment, pioneer life, and tests of growing up. Fenn's writing emphasizes plot momentum and dialogue, with frequent suspense between chapters, making it a window into Victorian-era adventure fiction for young readers. Since the original is in English with period language habits, reading it offers exposure both to old-fashioned English expression and to the way colonial landscapes were imagined in the literature of the time. The book is better appreciated as literary material or genre reading than as a strict history textbook. Reading several chapters at a stretch in a quiet setting is recommended, paying attention to how character relationships and environmental description work together.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read the table of contents and first chapter first to establish the characters and setting before continuing
  2. Take brief notes on old nautical or colonial vocabulary rather than looking up every word
  3. Review the plot threads every two or three chapters so long English sentences do not obscure the main line
  4. Read alongside background material on colonial Australia to distinguish fictional imagination from historical fact

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
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59

FAQ

Is this book a history or a novel? It is a juvenile adventure novel by George Manville Fenn, set against a New South Wales background; it is not a work of historical research. The regional setting and colonial life are literary backdrop, and it should be read as fiction rather than as a historical source.
How difficult is the original English? The book is aimed at young readers and its plot moves fairly directly, but it was written in the nineteenth century, so sentence patterns and some vocabulary carry period features. Readers with intermediate English can manage with a dictionary, while beginners may need annotations or a guide.
Is it suitable for whole-class teaching? It can serve as selected reading for nineteenth-century adventure fiction, but it is not recommended as a compulsory whole-class text. If teachers use it, they should select chapters and add background notes on the colonial period to help students distinguish literary narrative from historical fact.

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

Fenn, George Manville, 1831-1909 Author

George Manville Fenn (1831–1909) was a British author whose biographical details remain limited in publicly available sources. The library holds 127 of his works, including The Little Skipper: A Son of a Sailor, The Silver Canyon: A Tale of the Western Plains, and Sappers and Miners: The Flood beneath the Sea. Most center on youthful growth and adventure, often set at sea, in mining districts, or on the western plains. He also wrote such biographical work as George Alfred Henty: The Story of an Active Life. His writing emphasizes plot momentum and the shaping of character in young readers, and is commonly classified as inspirational coming-of-age fiction, holding a place in the tradition of juvenile adventure novels.