Gaspar the Gaucho: A Story of the Gran Chaco

Reid, Mayne, 1818-1883Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.2
Word count
522K words
Chapters
53

Tags

English Originals Foreign Literature Legendary LivesFrontier AdventureCourage and Responsibility19th CenturySouth American PlainsExotic CultureGauchoYouth 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.Gaspar the Gaucho: A Story of the Gran Chaco by Mayne ReidAuthor: Reid, Mayne, 1818-1883,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Nov 28, 2007

Editor's review

This work comes from the hand of Mayne Reid, a prolific nineteenth-century adventure novelist. Set in the Chaco wilderness north of the Argentine Pampas, it unfolds around the experiences of the young herdsman Gaspar. Reid's writing is known for solid geographical detail and brisk pacing, and this book likewise interweaves pursuits, lost trails, and brushes with danger with observations of South American inland vegetation, rivers, and indigenous life, offering readers both narrative satisfaction and a felt sense of the Gran Chaco. As a free Project Gutenberg electronic text, it has no notes or introduction from a modern edition; its narrative perspective and diction bear clear marks of the Victorian era, and today's readers should approach it with historical awareness. The book is best suited as an introductory sample of Reid's adventure-fiction style and of nineteenth-century English juvenile reading, and as further reading for those interested in South American geography and frontier narrative. Of moderate length, it can be read in scattered moments without the need for scholarly close reading.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read a page of the main text first to judge the style; if the sentences feel archaic, slow down and read mainly for plot momentum
  2. Keep a map of South America at hand and check place names and landscape descriptions as you go to strengthen your sense of space
  3. Do not look up every unfamiliar plant or animal word; infer from context first and check them together after finishing
  4. After reading, write a short review noting differences between the book's descriptions of the wilderness and present-day understanding

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
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FAQ

How difficult is the English in this book? The original is nineteenth-century English with longer sentences and some now-rare vocabulary, placing it between intermediate and upper-intermediate overall. Readers with college-level English reading ability and familiarity with older prose can get through it fairly smoothly; if you usually read only contemporary fiction, try a chapter or two before deciding whether to continue.
Will the lack of notes affect comprehension? The place names, plants, animals, and local customs in the book lack modern annotation, but the main plot moves through the characters' actions and can be understood without background knowledge. For deeper understanding, consult geographical material on the Gran Chaco yourself and treat the novel as supplementary reading on the region.
Is this edition suitable for children? The original was aimed at young readers, and the adventure plot is appealing in itself, but the book carries nineteenth-century perspectives on indigenous peoples and the frontier that require scrutiny today. Adults should look through it first, or read it with children and discuss its historical attitudes, before deciding whether to recommend it.

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About the author

Reid, Mayne, 1818-1883 Author

Mayne Reid (1818–1883) was a prolific nineteenth-century writer of English-language adventure fiction. Details of his life are limited in publicly available sources; what is relatively reliable is that he was born in 1818 and died in 1883. The library holds 57 of his works, commonly classified as inspirational coming-of-age stories, which shows that his writing centered on adventure and growth for young readers. Representative works include The Headless Horseman: A Strange Tale of Texas, set on the Texas frontier, along with Ran Away to Sea, The Forest Exiles, The Desert Home, The Maroon, The Quadroon, and The Land of Fire, which carry readers to the Amazon jungle, the wilderness, the sea, and the Far West. His novels feature tight plots and wide-open settings, often depicting separated families, survival in foreign lands, and youthful adventure; they were widely read in the English-speaking world and have had some influence on later adventure literature.