Godolphin, Complete

Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron, 1803-1873Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.1

Word count: 679K words
Chapters: 68

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.Godolphin, Complete by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton LyttonAuthor: Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron, 1803-1873,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Nov 27, 2004

Editor's review

Godolphin, Complete is a full-length novel by Baron Edward Bulwer-Lytton, belonging to the nineteenth-century English tradition of social manners and psychological portraiture. Its value for readers lies in its treatment of aristocratic society, ambition, and emotional entanglement in the decades around the Victorian era: character relationships are developed in detail, and the narrative pace has the unhurried quality of serial fiction. As a free Project Gutenberg eBook, it serves well as a textual sample for studying the nineteenth-century English novel or Lytton's narrative style. The complete edition lets readers read it through without the interruptions of volume divisions. It is best approached within the context of nineteenth-century English social fiction, with attention to the tension the author draws between upper-class etiquette and personal desire, rather than with the expectations of a modern fast-paced novel. The electronic edition is easy to search by character and chapter, and suits note-taking reading.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in nineteenth-century English literature and novels of social manners
Students who need a free public-domain English novel text for course reading
Readers who enjoy complete long novels and are willing to follow relationships unfold slowly
Readers studying Lytton's narrative style and the forms of Victorian fiction

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer fast-paced contemporary plots and strong suspense
Readers unaccustomed to nineteenth-century English long sentences and slow narrative
Readers who want only short excerpts and are unwilling to commit to a complete long novel
Readers with little interest in aristocratic social settings

Reading tips

Read the opening chapters first to gauge the narrative pace and character relationships before deciding how to read it through.
Keep a character list of major figures and social relationships to reduce confusion in a long novel.
Read alongside background material on nineteenth-century English society to better understand the etiquette and class descriptions.
Use the electronic edition's search function to revisit chapters, reading in stages rather than forcing it all at once.

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

Is Godolphin, Complete suitable for beginners?

It is not really suitable as an introductory reader for English beginners. It is a nineteenth-century English novel with long sentences and considerable social background and etiquette description, requiring some foundation in English reading. If you have already read similar Victorian novels, it will go more smoothly.

What is the difference between the complete edition and reading by volume?

The complete edition gathers the whole book in one electronic text, making continuous reading and an overall grasp of character relationships easier; reading by volume suits scheduling reading in chapter units. The complete edition relies more on readers planning their own pace, so it is advisable to look at the table of contents first and then allocate reading amounts.

Can this book be used as a reference for English literature courses?

It can serve as supplementary reading for the nineteenth-century English novel, especially for observing the narrative methods of the novel of social manners. But it is not among the works most often placed on core reading lists, so it is best used with the course's main textbooks and background materials rather than as the main course text on its own.

What should I pay attention to when reading the electronic edition?

The Project Gutenberg version is a free public-domain electronic text, easy to search and copy. When reading, pay attention to chapter layout and paragraphing; a reader that supports bookmarks and annotations is recommended for revisiting character threads and key plot points.

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About the author

Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron, 1803-1873 Author

Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron Lytton (1803–1873) was an English novelist, playwright and politician. The library holds 220 of his works, spanning a wide range of subjects: the historical novel The Last Days of Pompeii, set against the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79; Rienzi, the Last of the Roman Tribunes, on the Roman tribune Cola di Rienzo; and Eugene Aram, a narrative drawn from a criminal case. He also wrote society novels such as Pelham, the family portrait The Caxtons, and the historical study Athens: Its Rise and Fall; the short tale The Haunted and the Haunters, or The House and the Brain reflects his interest in the supernatural. His style is ornate and his plots elaborate, combining romantic colouring with social satire. Public information is limited, and systematic Chinese-language appraisal of his life and work remains scarce.