Left to Themselves: Being the Ordeal of Philip and Gerald

Prime-Stevenson, Edward, 1858-1942Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.0
Word count
340K words
Chapters
35

Tags

English Originals Foreign Literature Portrait GalleryAdventure JourneyFate and FortuneComing of AgePsychological InsightGrowing UpMoral DilemmaYouthful VibeHeartwarming NarrativeSelf-Reflection

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.Left to Themselves: Being the Ordeal of Philip and Gerald by Edward Prime-StevensonAuthor: Prime-Stevenson, Edward, 1858-1942,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: May 23, 2018

Editor's review

This novel by Edward Prime-Stevenson follows the experiences of Philip and Gerald, with the word "ordeal" in the title signalling a narrative of trial and hardship. From the available material it belongs to the American literary tradition, and the Project Gutenberg edition makes this early novel accessible again. Its value lies in its portrayal of personal relationships under pressure: two boys depend on each other in difficult circumstances, and the plot advances through changes in setting and choices rather than grand set pieces. For readers interested in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century English-language fiction, especially themes of youthful growth and companionship, the book offers a text worth discussing. It also serves as supplementary material for studying the author's work. Note that the available information provides no detailed plot, so readers should approach it with an open mind, focusing on character psychology and narrative pace rather than expecting action-heavy adventure.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the opening chapters first to grasp the relationships and situation, then decide your reading pace.
  2. As you read, note how the "ordeal" in the title manifests, and track the turning points in the two characters' relationship.
  3. Read alongside background material on late nineteenth-century American literature to understand the work's historical context.
  4. If using it for a course or book club, design discussion questions around companionship, responsibility, and the cost of growing up.

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
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35

FAQ

Is this book suitable for young readers? The book centres on young people's experiences, but its style and pace belong to an earlier tradition of English fiction, so young readers may need some patience. Suitability depends on the reader's English level and interest in classic narrative; trying the opening chapters first is advisable.
Do I need to know the plot in advance? The available information gives no detailed plot, so there is no need to rely on a summary before reading. You can go straight into the text and follow the relationships and changing circumstances; if you need to discuss it, you can map out the events afterwards.
What are the features of this ebook edition? Published by Project Gutenberg, this is a public-domain ebook, free to obtain and search. The electronic edition suits screen reading and keyword searching but lacks the layout experience of a printed book; readers can choose according to their needs.

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

Prime-Stevenson, Edward, 1858-1942 Author

Edward Prime-Stevenson (1858-1942) is an author whose biography and nationality are poorly documented in publicly available sources; there are currently two of his works in the collection. Judging from the surviving works, his writing spans two quite different fields: fiction and card divination. Left to Themselves: Being the Ordeal of Philip and Gerald follows the experiences and trials of young people and reads as a coming-of-age narrative, while The Square of Sevens: An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory systematically sets out a method of cartomancy and includes a prefatory explanation. The marked difference in subject matter suggests wide-ranging interests: he was capable of plot-driven storytelling and also drawn to instructional writing with a mystical bent. Because sources are limited, details of his life and his literary standing require further verification; readers may form a picture of his writing from the works mentioned above.