The Gibbet

Henri-Émile ChevalierProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.7

Word count: 347K words
Chapters: 35

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.Le gibet by H. Emile ChevalierAuthor: Chevalier, H. Emile (Henri Emile), 1828-1879,Language: French, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: May 16, 2006

Editor's review

Le gibet is a French novel by Henri Émile Chevalier (1828–1879), circulated as a free eBook through Project Gutenberg. Chevalier was a nineteenth-century French writer of popular fiction whose works often dealt with adventure, suspense, and historical subjects; this book follows that vein, building its narrative around the image of the gallows, with a gloomy atmosphere and tightly paced plot. As a public-domain eBook, its value lies first in accessibility: readers can encounter the original text of a nineteenth-century French popular novel at no cost and observe the narrative rhythm, suspense construction, and moral concerns typical of serial fiction of the period. For readers studying French literature (PQ category) or nineteenth-century popular reading culture, the book offers unmodernized primary material. It suits French extensive reading or use as a case sample of genre fiction rather than as a model for close reading. Note that the electronic edition is a raw scanned-and-compiled text, retaining old conventions of layout and punctuation, which first-time readers may need to adjust to. Overall, it is a niche work for understanding the French popular novel tradition, best approached with an eye to literary history rather than purely for entertainment.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Learners with some French reading ability who want to use original French texts for extensive reading practice
Readers studying nineteenth-century French popular fiction and serial literature
General readers interested in old adventure and suspense fiction
eBook users seeking free public-domain French literary texts

Not a good fit for

Readers with no French at all who need a Chinese translation
Readers expecting a modern typeset, carefully edited and annotated edition
Genre-fiction fans who prefer contemporary pacing and writing techniques

Reading tips

Read one chapter first to get a feel for the old French punctuation and sentence patterns, then decide the pace of chapter-by-chapter progress.
Keep a French dictionary or electronic lookup tool ready; mark unfamiliar expressions and deal with them in batches.
Read this alongside another work by the same author to observe recurring themes and narrative formulas.
If reading for research, note as you go where suspense is set up and where characters are introduced, chapter by chapter.

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 in Chinese or French?

The main text is in the original French; it is a public-domain eBook from Project Gutenberg and includes no Chinese translation. It suits readers with some French reading ability or use as extensive reading material for French learners.

Why does the electronic edition feel less modern in its layout?

Project Gutenberg aims to preserve and disseminate public-domain texts; this book follows the original text, retaining old conventions of punctuation and paragraphing, and is not a modern, carefully edited commercial edition. Readers need to adjust to this somewhat.

Do I need to know the author's background to read it?

Not necessarily. Chevalier was a nineteenth-century French writer of popular fiction, and this book belongs to the adventure-suspense line. You can go straight into the plot; if you want to understand its place in literary history, you can add background knowledge on nineteenth-century French serial novels later.

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About the author

Henri-Émile Chevalier Author · French · 1828–1879

Henri-Émile Chevalier (1828–1879) was a French journalist, novelist and librarian, born in Châtillon in 1828 and died in Paris in 1879. For political reasons he went into exile in the United States and Canada, where he edited the periodical La Ruche and became familiar with the geography and peoples of North America. The collection holds thirteen of his works, including Le chasseur noir, Les derniers Iroquois, La Tête-Plate, La fille des indiens rouges and Jacques Cartier. Most are adventure novels about Native Americans, combining exotic settings and historical narrative with tight plotting and attention to indigenous life and tribal conflict. Public information is limited, and a full survey of his output and literary standing remains to be compiled, but existing sources show him to be a representative nineteenth-century French writer of North American adventure fiction.