Ford of H.M.S. Vigilant: A Tale of the Chusan Archipelago

Project GutenbergProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.8
Word count
584K words
Chapters
59

Tags

English Originals Foreign Literature Military StrategyHeroismGrowing UpExotic CultureYouth 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.Ford of H.M.S. Vigilant: A Tale of the Chusan Archipelago by T. T. JeansAuthor: ,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Aug 3, 2014

Editor's review

This is an English adventure novel by T. T. Jeans, set in the Chusan Archipelago and centred on Ford aboard the British warship Vigilant. Available as a free Project Gutenberg e-book, it preserves the narrative pace of early twentieth-century sea adventure: warship life, island voyages and a boy's coming of age interwoven, with a marked period perspective and naval flavour. Its value lies in offering a window into how English adventure fiction of the time wrote about East Asian waters and naval life, rather than in strict historical accuracy. Readers can follow the characters' changes in discipline, courage and comradeship, and note how places and peoples are portrayed, reading critically. It suits readers who enjoy old-style sea adventure and naval themes, but should not be treated as a reliable source for the local history of Chusan or for naval history.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. First learn the basic background of the Chusan Archipelago and British naval activity in East Asia, then enter the story to reduce gaps in geography and context.
  2. While reading, distinguish fiction from historical fact and keep critical notes on the portrayal of places and peoples.
  3. Read alongside sea adventure novels of the same period to observe similarities and differences in narrative formulas and period perspectives.
  4. Old English novels have many long sentences; proceed chapter by chapter and note character relationships and shipboard ranks as you go.

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 real history or fiction? It is an English adventure novel by T. T. Jeans; the characters and plot are fictional narrative, with a background involving the Chusan Archipelago and a British warship. It can be used to observe the writing perspective of the period, but should not be taken as historical fact.
Can the descriptions of Chusan in the book be used as local history material? Not directly as local history material. The geography and descriptions of people serve the adventure narrative and carry period perspectives and literary embellishment; for research they should be compared with other historical sources and analysed critically.
Is the English difficult to read? The text is an early twentieth-century English novel with long passages and some old naval and nautical vocabulary. Readers with a general foundation in reading English fiction can make progress, but will need to look up words and adapt to old-fashioned syntax.
Is it suitable for young readers? It can serve as an introduction to English adventure fiction, but the text carries colonial perspectives and naval descriptions of an older era; young readers are advised to read with guidance from a teacher or parent and discuss its period limitations.

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About the author

Project Gutenberg Author

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