Frank Reade Jr.'s Air Wonder, The Kite Or, A Six Weeks' Flight Over the Andes

Senarens, Luis, 1863-1939Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.5
Word count
154K words
Chapters
16

Tags

English Originals Science Fiction InventionScience Fiction ImaginationAerial NavigationAdventure JourneyHeroismComing of AgeSuspenseful PlotImaginationExotic 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.Frank Reade Jr.'s Air Wonder, The "Kite"; Or, A Six Weeks' Flight Over the AndesAuthor: Senarens, Luis, 1863-1939,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Feb 28, 2017

Editor's review

This work is one of the "Frank Reade Jr." series by Luis Senarens, a late-nineteenth-century American writer of popular boys' adventure fiction. It follows a young inventor's six-week aerial adventure across the Andes aboard an airship called "The Kite." Its value lies not in literary depth but in offering a vivid sample of early science fiction and aviation imagination: aircraft design, transcontinental exploration, exotic geography, and engineering fantasy intertwine, reflecting the optimism and curiosity about technological progress in the late steam age. The plot moves briskly, and its chapter-by-chapter structure suits fragmented reading; the dialogue and narration bear clear marks of their era, making it useful supplementary material for studying American popular literature, the boys' adventure genre, and early technological imagination. Read it as a historical text rather than modern science fiction; attending to its technological imagination and period discourse will be more rewarding than simply following the plot.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Begin with the opening and the chapters where the airship appears; grasp the "Kite" setup before entering the journey
  2. Read in chapter segments and note one instance of technological imagination or geographical description after each segment
  3. Annotate with the background of late-nineteenth-century aviation exploration in mind, distinguishing fantasy from real technology
  4. For research, read alongside other boys' inventor series for comparison

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

FAQ

Is this book suitable to read as modern science fiction? Not really. It is closer to late-nineteenth-century popular boys' adventure fiction; scientific elements mostly serve plot and spectacle rather than rigorous extrapolation. It reads more accurately when approached as a text reflecting the era's technological optimism and taste for adventure.
Can I read this directly without having read other books in the series? Yes. Such series novels usually have relatively self-contained plots, and the protagonist's setup is explained at the beginning. Reading it directly does not hinder understanding of the main plot, though familiarity with the characters' backgrounds will be slightly lower.
How difficult is the original English? The language is generally accessible with fairly short sentences, but it carries late-nineteenth-century vocabulary and narrative habits, and some geographical and mechanical names may be unfamiliar. Readers with intermediate English can finish it smoothly with a dictionary.

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About the author

Senarens, Luis, 1863-1939 Author

Luis Senarens (1863-1939) was a prolific American writer of popular fiction in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, best known for adventure stories featuring young inventors. The library holds 15 of his works, most notably the Frank Reade series, including Frank Reade and His Steam Horse, Frank Reade, Jr., and His New Steam Man, The Sunken Isthmus, and Frank Reade Jr.'s Air Wonder, The Kite. These stories center on remarkable machines powered by steam or electricity and on daring expeditions to remote regions. Their fast-paced plots and bold imagination reflect the era's fascination with technological progress and geographical exploration. Public information about his life, nationality, and education is limited, so no speculation is offered here.