'Lena Rivers

Holmes, Mary Jane, 1825-1907Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.1

Word count: 696K words
Chapters: 70

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.'Lena Rivers by Mary Jane HolmesAuthor: Holmes, Mary Jane, 1825-1907,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jul 7, 2004

Editor's review

'Lena Rivers is a mid-nineteenth-century domestic novel by Mary Jane Holmes in the sentimental tradition: the heroine's growth, origins, and courtship form the main line, interwoven with details of rural life and moral tests. Holmes's novels are known for a gentle narrative pace, clear contrasts between good and evil, and strong concern with family ethics, and this book is no exception; the plot is driven by coincidence and misunderstanding, and the characters are clearly typed, yet this makes plain the period's popular-literature imagination of female character, class mobility, and family duty. Its value for reading leans toward literary and socio-cultural history: it can be compared with contemporary domestic novels to observe how sentimental narrative carries moral instruction, and it can serve as a sample of nineteenth-century American popular reading taste. The prose is generally plain, but the book is long and contains many didactic passages; modern readers should adjust their expectations and read it as a period text rather than a suspense novel.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers studying nineteenth-century American popular fiction and the domestic-novel tradition
Cultural historians interested in Victorian-era images of women and moral narrative
Lovers of classic literature accustomed to slow pacing and tolerant of a didactic tone

Not a good fit for

Modern genre-fiction readers seeking tight plotting and strong suspense
Readers impatient with sentimental tone and moral instruction
Those with limited English reading experience who would struggle with a long narrative

Reading tips

First learn the basic conventions of the domestic novel, then note how this book advances moral tests through coincidence and misunderstanding
Read the heroine's situation against contemporary norms of female conduct, keeping notes on character relationships
Skim didactic passages and focus on turning points in the plot and moments of character choice

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

What kind of novel is this?

It belongs to the nineteenth-century American domestic novel popular at the time, centered on a woman's growth, secrets of origin, and courtship choices, with a marked sentimental tone and intent to instruct morally; the plot relies heavily on coincidence and misunderstanding.

Why does the pacing feel slow?

The original serial-style writing and the reading habits of the period set the narrative pace; the author spends more space on daily scenes and characters' feelings and inserts moral commentary. Modern readers can skim the didactic passages and focus on the main turning points.

What background knowledge is needed to read this book?

It helps to know the basic features of nineteenth-century American domestic fiction, women's social roles, and moral discourse. With that background, it is easier to see the period ideas behind the character setups and plot arrangements.

Comments

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About the author

Holmes, Mary Jane, 1825-1907 Author

Mary Jane Holmes (1825–1907) was a popular nineteenth-century American novelist who found a wide readership in her day. Public information about her early life and education is limited, but her output was considerable: this site holds twenty-one of her works, which suggests how active she was in the book market and among readers of her time. Her representative novels include The English Orphans, ‘Lena Rivers, Bad Hugh, Family Pride, Cousin Maude, Maggie Miller, Gretchen, and Tempest and Sunshine. These stories are mostly drawn from domestic life and emotional entanglements, often turning on orphaned origins, family ties, pride and suffering, secrets and reconciliation. Their plots are eventful, their tone gentle, and their sensibility plainly sentimental and moralizing. Written for a broad popular audience and especially welcomed by women readers, her novels offer a useful window onto the character of nineteenth-century American popular fiction.