Fordham's Feud

Mitford, Bertram, 1855-1914Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.5

Word count: 565K words
Chapters: 57

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.Fordham's Feud by Bertram MitfordAuthor: Mitford, Bertram, 1855-1914,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Jul 3, 2011

Editor's review

Fordham's Feud is a novel by the English writer Bertram Mitford, released as a public-domain eBook by Project Gutenberg. Mitford was known for popular fiction set in adventure and colonial contexts, and this book revolves around the feud of the Fordham family, with the narrative pace of old-fashioned English fiction: character relationships unfold layer by layer, and conflict and misunderstanding drive the plot, giving it the pleasure of following a story. As a public-domain text, its value lies in offering a sample of English popular fiction from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century; the language is direct and the plot clearly driven, making it suitable practice material for reading English originals. Note that the book inevitably carries the attitudes and wording of its time, and today's readers should keep a critical eye. Overall, it is better as casual English reading than as a literary classic for close study.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who want to practice reading English originals and prefer plot-driven fiction
Readers interested in late Victorian to Edwardian popular fiction
English readers who enjoy family-feud and adventure themes
Readers who need free public-domain English novels for leisure

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking modern literary technique and deep psychological portrayal
Readers sensitive to old-era attitudes and wording
Beginners with weak English who need annotated support

Reading tips

Read the first two or three chapters to sort out the characters; jot down family members and their positions.
Move forward at one or two chapters a day to keep the plot coherent.
Mark strongly period-flavored wording and revisit it later rather than stopping your reading.
After finishing, compare it with popular English fiction of the same era and note the narrative formulas.

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

What is the story mainly about?

The book revolves around the feud of the Fordham family and belongs to old-fashioned, plot-driven English fiction. The story moves through character relationships and conflict, with flavors of adventure and family entanglement. For specifics, rely on the original text; start with the opening chapters and clarify who is on which side before reading on.

Why should readers watch for the attitudes of the era?

The book was written in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, when popular English fiction often carried the racial, gender, and class attitudes of the time. Today's readers should keep their distance and a critical awareness of such wording while enjoying the story, treating it as a historical text rather than a reference for values.

Is it suitable for learning English?

It can serve as practice material for reading English originals: the language is direct and the plot strongly driven, which helps maintain reading momentum. But it contains old-fashioned expressions and period vocabulary that may be hard for beginners; it is better for readers with some vocabulary, with a dictionary at hand.

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About the author

Mitford, Bertram, 1855-1914 Author

Bertram Mitford (1855–1914) was an English writer about whose life relatively little is publicly known; his work consists mainly of colonial adventure fiction. Twenty-seven of his books are held here, commonly classified under inspirational coming-of-age writing, though their actual subjects center on the South African frontier and on military conflicts and pioneering experiences among the Zulu and Matabele. Representative titles include The Sign of the Spider, The King‘s Assegai, Forging the Blades, and Aletta, whose very names evoke spiders, royal spears, blade-forging, and the Boer invasion. His style favors exotic landscapes, tense plots, and themes of masculine adventure and growth, with characters tested in strange and dangerous settings. Because public information is limited, his detailed biography cannot be firmly established, yet these works offer a glimpse of late nineteenth-century English adventure fiction.