Kentucky in American Letters, 1784-1912. Vol. 2 of 2

John Wilson TownsendProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.3
Word count
717K words
Chapters
72

Tags

English Originals Literary Appreciation Historical RetrospectLiterary ArchivesCelebrity PortraitDocument CompilationRural WritingEclectic ReadingLocal GazetteerLocal Literary HeritageAmerican SouthCross-Cultural View

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.Kentucky in American Letters, 1784-1912. Vol. 2 of 2 by John Wilson TownsendAuthor: Townsend, John Wilson, 1885-1968,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jul 6, 2012

Editor's review

This is Volume 2 of Townsend's two-volume documentary history of Kentucky literature. Continuing the chronological sequence of Volume 1, it gathers further biographical and textual materials on Kentucky writers from 1784 to 1912. Available as a free Project Gutenberg e-book, its value lies in bringing scattered local literary documents together so that researchers can follow the trail. Organized mainly as author entries with excerpts from works, it combines literary-historical narrative with a sourcebook function and helps readers see how American regional literature accumulated through the nineteenth century. It is suited to desk reference and specialized research rather than continuous reading. Readers should note the English-language original and the limitations of perspective imposed by its early date, and treat its assessments as leads to sources rather than settled conclusions.

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Reading tips

  1. Compare with the Volume 1 table of contents first to confirm Volume 2's scope before planning a reading schedule
  2. Make index cards by author name, noting biographical and textual leads for later verification
  3. When encountering evaluative passages, compare them with the original works to distinguish source material from editorial opinion
  4. Prioritize entries relevant to one's own research topic rather than reading the whole book

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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  71. 71
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FAQ

Can I read Volume 2 without having read Volume 1? Yes, but the two volumes belong to one documentary set, and their entries and chronological threads are interrelated. Reading Volume 2 directly may leave gaps in background; it is advisable at least to skim the Volume 1 table of contents to understand the overall framework before turning to Volume 2.
Does this book contain complete original texts of the works? Based on the materials, the book focuses on writers and literary sources and includes excerpts and commentary rather than complete works. To read full texts, look up the original works by the respective authors separately.
What should I keep in mind when reading the e-book? The Project Gutenberg edition is a free e-book with text-based formatting, suitable for searching and excerpting. Save bookmarks and notes as you read, and check page or entry numbers for later citation.

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

John Wilson Townsend Author · American · 1885–1968

John Wilson Townsend (1885–1968) was an American writer and bibliographer who devoted sustained attention to compiling and studying the literary history of Kentucky. His representative work is the two-volume Kentucky in American Letters, 1784-1912, which documents the state's presence in American literature from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century through a documentary, bibliographic approach, combining textual scholarship with local literary history. The library holds two of his works, namely these two volumes. Beyond his birth and death dates, nationality, and editorial output, public information is limited, and details of his life, education, and career remain unclear. Overall, his work provides a useful foundation for research on Kentucky's literary sources and holds reference value for the bibliographic organization of regional literature.