Jack Buntline

William Henry Giles KingstonProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 133K words
Chapters: 14

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.Jack Buntline by William Henry Giles KingstonAuthor: Kingston, William Henry Giles, 1814-1880,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Aug 29, 2011

Editor's review

This is a sea-adventure novel by Kingston, a prolific nineteenth-century British writer of boys' literature, and a typical Victorian boys' book: the plot moves through seafaring, chance and moral testing, the narrative pace is brisk, characters are clearly divided into good and evil, and the didactic tone of the age is unmistakable. For today's readers its main value lies not in complex literary technique but in offering a sample for observing the narrative patterns and values of nineteenth-century British boys' adventure fiction; it can be read alongside works such as The Coral Island to understand the spirit of juvenile reading in the imperial era. The Project Gutenberg edition is a public-domain English e-book, easy to search and cite, and suitable as English reading material or as a primary text for the history of children's literature and colonial literature. It is best read as a historical text rather than a contemporary children's recommendation, with attention to period prejudices and stereotypes and with reference to background materials.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literary scholars studying nineteenth-century British boys' adventure fiction
Advanced English learners who want to build reading skills through original English texts
Readers interested in seafaring subjects and Victorian values
Teachers who need public-domain English texts for course materials or textual analysis

Not a good fit for

General fiction readers seeking tense plots and contemporary narrative pacing
Young children, for whom both the language and the historical background are obstacles
Readers sensitive to colonial-era attitudes who do not wish to engage with old texts

Reading tips

Read the introduction or author background first, then the main text, to help identify period attitudes
Work through chapter by chapter and note nautical terms and didactic passages to summarize themes
Read alongside other boys' adventure novels of the same period and compare characterization and 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

Is this book suitable as English reading material for children?

Not very suitable for young children. The text is nineteenth-century English, with old-fashioned sentence structures and vocabulary, and it contains the moralizing and assumptions of its time, requiring adult guidance and background explanation. It is better suited to teenagers or adults with some English foundation.

What is special about this edition?

It comes from Project Gutenberg and is a free public-domain e-book in the original English, easy to search, cite and copy passages from, and suitable for research or teaching. It is not a scholarly edition with modern notes and introduction, so readers need to supply background materials themselves.

What can readers gain from this book?

The main gain is an understanding of the narrative patterns, character types and values of nineteenth-century British boys' adventure fiction, and it can serve as a textual sample for literary history or colonial literature studies. Those seeking only entertainment may find both the pacing and the attitudes dated.

Comments

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About the author

William Henry Giles Kingston Author · British · 1814–1880

William Henry Giles Kingston (1814–1880) was a British author of adventure stories for young readers. Born in London, he spent part of his youth with his father in Porto, Portugal. He rose to fame in 1851 with Peter the Whaler and thereafter devoted himself to tales of the sea and exploration, writing more than a hundred books over his lifetime and also translating works by Jules Verne. His notable works include The Three Midshipmen, Captain Cook: His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries, and Great African Travellers: From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley, most of them drawing on seafaring, exotic adventure, and the deeds of the British Navy. He excelled at linking the adventures of young protagonists with informative and moral content, in briskly paced stories rich in maritime atmosphere that were widely popular with young readers in the Victorian era. The collection here contains 133 of his works. Public information on his early education and specific experiences is limited, so no conjecture is offered here.