Jacqueline — Complete

Thérèse Bentzon (Marie-Thérèse Blanc, née de Solms)Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.8

Word count: 459K words
Chapters: 46

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.Jacqueline — Complete by Th. BentzonAuthor: Bentzon, Th., 1840-1907,Language: English, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Oct 30, 2004

Editor's review

This is the complete English-language novel by the French writer Théodore Bentzon, an early Project Gutenberg digitization of public-domain literature. Bentzon was long active in nineteenth-century French letters, and his narrative combines French realism with emotional portraiture. Jacqueline — Complete follows its title heroine, with the plot driven by the tension between inner life and social circumstance. As the complete version, it preserves the chapter structure and ending, suiting readers who want to read the whole work rather than fragments. The electronic text comes from the public domain, is simply formatted and free of copyright obstacles, and is easy to read on a phone, tablet or e-reader. For readers studying the image of women in nineteenth-century French literature, or the early forms of the e-book, it offers a light entry point. Note that it is not a modern annotated edition: it lacks detailed notes and an introduction, so readers must supply the historical context themselves. Overall it is better suited to literary enthusiasts as extended reading or as a sample of public-domain resources than as a scholarly base text.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in nineteenth-century French literature who want the public-domain original
Literature lovers who need a light electronic text for commuting
Digital-humanities beginners studying early e-books and public-domain resources
Readers who enjoy emotional narratives centered on a female protagonist

Not a good fit for

Researchers who need detailed annotation and a scholarly introduction
Readers who prefer contemporary fast-paced plots and strong suspense
Readers with high aesthetic demands for the typography of English public-domain texts

Reading tips

Read the opening chapters of character introduction first, and sort out the main relationships before entering the main plot.
Keep a chronology of nineteenth-century French history at hand to help understand the social background.
Read two or three chapters a day to keep the narrative coherent without becoming overtired.
After finishing, compare with other works by the same author to observe his treatment of women.

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 the complete version or an excerpt?

The title is marked Complete, so it is the full version, containing the main chapters and ending, not an excerpt or adaptation. The text comes from Project Gutenberg's public-domain electronic resources and is suited to continuous reading.

Can I read it if my English is not good?

The text is in English, in a style shaped by nineteenth-century literary conventions, with many long sentences and descriptions. Readers with basic English may need a dictionary or a bilingual edition, and their reading will be slower.

Why are there no notes or introduction?

This edition is an early Project Gutenberg public-domain electronic text, intended mainly to provide freely available original text. It usually has no modern scholarly notes, chronology or introduction, so readers must supply the background themselves.

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About the author

Thérèse Bentzon (Marie-Thérèse Blanc, née de Solms) Author · French · 1840–1907

Thérèse Bentzon (1840–1907), born Marie-Thérèse Blanc and known by the pen name "Thérèse Bentzon," was a French novelist, journalist and translator. A longtime contributor to the Revue des Deux Mondes, she focused on women's circumstances and social issues, and received several awards from the Académie française. Her representative works include Jacqueline and The American Woman. Five of her works are held in this collection, all belonging to Jacqueline and its related sections. Public information is limited and details of her life are largely unavailable, but her surviving works show a delicate touch and a keen sense of women's situations under family and social pressure, combining a novelist's narrative gift with a journalist's observation; this engagement with real social questions gives her writing a degree of representative significance within late nineteenth-century French women's writing.