In the Fire of the Forge: A Romance of Old Nuremberg — Volume 04

Georg Moritz EbersProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.5

Word count: 115K words
Chapters: 12

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.In the Fire of the Forge: A Romance of Old Nuremberg — Volume 04 by Georg EbersAuthor: Ebers, Georg, 1837-1898,Language: English, Class: PT: Language and Literatures: Germanic, Scandinavian, and Icelandic literatures, Release Date: Apr 1, 2004

Editor's review

In the Fire of the Forge: A Romance of Old Nuremberg, Volume 04 is a installment of Ebers's historical novel set in Nuremberg; the forge imagery in the title echoes the character of a medieval craft city. Ebers excels at turning archival research into scenes and dialogue, and this volume unfolds its narrative among the city's settings, guild life, and personal emotions, carrying the lyrical tone of a nineteenth-century romance. As the fourth volume, it depends on the characters and conflicts established in the previous three, and stands less well on its own. The Project Gutenberg English public-domain edition is easy to search and cite, making it useful for those studying Ebers's approach to the urban historical novel or interested in the historical atmosphere of Nuremberg, rather than for readers seeking a tightly plotted popular read.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in the urban history of Nuremberg and its medieval craft background
Literary readers studying Ebers's historical narrative and his writing of the city
Those needing a public-domain English text for translation practice or close reading

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting a self-contained plot who do not wish to read earlier volumes
Readers who prefer modern, fast-paced narrative and a concise style
Those who need a Chinese translation or cannot read English

Reading tips

Read the first three volumes in the series first to establish the relationships and main conflicts before this one.
While reading, note the descriptions of Nuremberg's urban spaces and guild life; they can serve as notes on historical background.
Consult related historical material on Nuremberg to distinguish archival exposition from literary invention.
For translation practice, select passages of dialogue and scene description for comparative analysis.

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 this a standalone story or part of a series?

It is part of a series. This is Volume 04 of In the Fire of the Forge, and its plot and characters continue from the first three volumes, so reading it alone leaves out necessary background. Reading in order is recommended, or at least familiarizing yourself with the earlier volumes' summaries before starting this one.

What does the "forge" in the title refer to?

The "forge" echoes Nuremberg's character as a medieval craft and guild city and also carries a metaphorical sense of characters being tempered by fate. What it refers to in the specific plot must be understood in the context of the whole book; it cannot be determined from the title alone.

What is this edition suitable for?

This is a Project Gutenberg English public-domain ebook, suitable for text searching, citation, translation practice, and literary research. It contains no Chinese translation and offers no modern annotations, so general casual reading requires adequate English proficiency.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Georg Moritz Ebers Author · German · 1837–1898

Georg Ebers (1837–1898) was a German Egyptologist and novelist. Born in Berlin in 1837, he served as a professor at the University of Leipzig. His major contribution to Egyptology was the discovery, editing, and publication of the famous Ebers Papyrus, which provided valuable material for the study of ancient medical texts. At the same time, he devoted himself to spreading Egyptological knowledge through literature, writing historical novels such as An Egyptian Princess and Uarda. These works weave the social life and historical settings of ancient Egypt into their narratives, making specialized scholarship more accessible to general readers. His works number 172 in the library's collection, including the serialized volumes of An Egyptian Princess and Cleopatra, which shows how widely his historical novels circulated. Overall, Ebers combined scholarly rigor with a novelist's gift for popular expression, occupying a distinctive place in the popularization of Egyptology in the nineteenth century.