The Nursemaid

Gréville, Henry, 1842-1902Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.6

Word count: 365K words
Chapters: 37

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.La Niania by Henry GrévilleAuthor: Gréville, Henry, 1842-1902,Language: French, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Jan 20, 2008

Editor's review

"La Niania" is a French novel by Henry Gréville, released as a free public-domain eBook by Project Gutenberg. Gréville often wrote about family and emotional themes, and this work centers on the family role of the nanny, using details of daily life to observe the subtle boundaries between class, upbringing, and intimacy. The narrative is realistic and leisurely in pace, with relationships developed gradually through dialogue and scenes; it suits readers willing to read slowly and appreciate the tone of nineteenth-century French fiction. As a public-domain text, it has no modern annotations or introduction, and its French reflects the usage of its time, so non-native readers need some language proficiency. Its value lies not in dramatic plot but in its delicate portrayal of the power and emotional structures within the family, making it useful as French reading practice or as supplementary material on the social background of French literature.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Language learners with intermediate or higher French reading ability
Readers interested in nineteenth-century French family and emotional themes
Readers studying the image of nannies and family roles in French literature
Literature lovers who enjoy realistic style and slow-paced narrative

Not a good fit for

Learners with no French or at beginner level
Readers who prefer strong plots and fast-paced stories
Readers who need modern annotations and introductions

Reading tips

Read the opening chapters first to get familiar with the author's language rhythm, then proceed chapter by chapter.
Keep a notebook to record character relationships and family scenes so you can sort out the threads when reviewing.
French learners can read a short section each day: read through first, then look up new words, avoiding frequent interruptions.

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 for French beginners?

Not very. The work is in nineteenth-century French, with period sentence structures and vocabulary, and the public-domain edition has no annotations, so intermediate reading ability or above is recommended.

What is the novel mainly about?

Judging from the title and the author's usual themes, the story centers on the nanny's role in the family, presenting relationships among family members and class differences through scenes of daily life; the plot is realistic rather than highly dramatic.

Does this edition include a Chinese translation or annotations?

This edition comes from Project Gutenberg and provides the French original as an eBook, usually without Chinese translation or modern annotations; readers who need support can use a dictionary or a parallel translation.

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About the author

Gréville, Henry, 1842-1902 Author

Henry Gréville (Gréville, Henry, 1842–1902) was a novelist writing in French in the late nineteenth century. Public information about his life is very limited: his nationality, education and personal history are not reliably documented. Judging from the six works held in the collection, his writing consists mainly of long narrative fiction concerned with family ethics, kinship ties and individual destiny. Suzanne Normis: Roman d'un père unfolds its story from a father's point of view, while La fille de Dosia and L'expiation de Saveli deal with emotional entanglement and atonement. The Russian-style names in the titles, together with figures such as "The Little Russian Servant" and "La Niania," suggest that he often introduced foreign settings and lower-class characters, in a realistic and sentimental tone. Gréville was thus a fairly productive popular novelist of his day; his works are not widely circulated now and are known mainly through bibliographic records.