Life's Progress Through the Passions Or, The Adventures of Natura

Eliza Fowler HaywoodProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.5

Word count: 381K words
Chapters: 39

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.Life's Progress Through the Passions; Or, The Adventures of Natura by HaywoodAuthor: Haywood, Eliza Fowler, 1693?-1756,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Mar 24, 2005

Editor's review

This novel comes from the prolific eighteenth-century English woman writer Eliza Haywood and follows the growth of the protagonist Natura, using the then-popular moral-psychological concept of "the passions" to link a series of adventures and encounters. Its structure clearly shows the didactic narrative mode of the Enlightenment: driven by love, ambition, vanity, and other passions, the characters pass through troubles and move toward self-knowledge and moral maturity. For today's readers, its main value lies not in the excitement of the plot but in its significance as a specimen of eighteenth-century popular fiction and women's writing—one can observe how the early English novel used character destiny to discuss the relations among emotion, reason, and virtue, and also sense Haywood's fluent, direct, argumentative narrative voice. The free Project Gutenberg edition is easy to search and compare, making it suitable as supplementary material for courses on the history of the English novel, eighteenth-century literature, or gender studies, and for readers interested in early English fiction to read in segments while commuting or before bed.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literature students studying the eighteenth-century English novel and women's writing
Intellectual-history readers interested in Enlightenment morality and the discourse of sentiment
Lovers of classical literature hoping to broaden their reading of English originals
Teachers who need free electronic texts as course supplementary material

Not a good fit for

Contemporary genre-fiction readers who prefer fast plots and strong suspense
Beginners whose English reading is not yet fluent and who need extensive annotation
Readers expecting a systematic scholarly introduction or detailed historical notes

Reading tips

Read the preface or publication information first to understand eighteenth-century narrative conventions, then enter the main text.
After each chapter, summarize in one sentence the "passion" Natura encounters and its consequences to keep the structure in view.
Slow down at argumentative passages and note how the narrator evaluates characters' behavior.
Read alongside materials on eighteenth-century English social history or overviews of women's writing for deeper understanding.

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 a complete novel?

Yes. It is a novel by Eliza Haywood, centered on the protagonist Natura's growth and emotional experience, using a series of adventures and encounters to discuss the relations among passion, reason, and morality. The Project Gutenberg edition is the complete text and can be read from beginning to end.

How difficult is the English, and what background is needed?

The text is eighteenth-century English, with long sentences and much argumentative content, distant from modern English, though the vocabulary is generally not very difficult. College-level reading ability is advisable, or use a dictionary or annotated edition. If you only want the gist, you can read alongside a Chinese summary or research materials.

Why is it considered valuable in literary history?

Haywood was one of the important novelists of eighteenth-century England; this work exemplifies the typical way popular fiction of the time used character destiny for moral instruction and reflects women authors' participation in the development of the early English novel. For readers studying the evolution of the novel form and women's writing, it is a usable primary text.

Any practical advice for reading the electronic edition?

Download the plain text or EPUB and use search to locate characters and keywords; since detailed notes are lacking, prepare your own background materials on the eighteenth century. Reading in segments with brief notes makes it easier to follow the thread of the characters' emotional changes than reading straight through.

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

Eliza Fowler Haywood Author · English · 1693–1756

Eliza Fowler Haywood (1693?–1756) was an eighteenth-century English writer, actress and publisher who produced roughly forty novels as well as various periodicals. She first made her name with amatory fiction and later turned to sentimental, didactic literature. Her representative works include The Fortunate Foundlings and The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless, and she edited the periodical The Female Spectator. Her writing spans popular narrative and moral instruction, often dealing with women's fortunes, emotions and social manners, and played a transitional role in the formative period of the English novel; she is regarded as one of its important founders. Public information on her early life and education is limited, and some biographical details remain debated.