Lightnin'

Bacon, Frank, 1864-1922Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.2

Word count: 309K words
Chapters: 31

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.Lightnin' by Frank BaconAuthor: Bacon, Frank, 1864-1922,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Nov 11, 2010

Editor's review

Lightnin' is a stage play by the American playwright Frank Bacon, written in the early twentieth century and made widely available through Project Gutenberg's free digitization. Its value lies first in its documentary quality: it preserves the dialogue rhythms, character configurations, and stage directions of American popular drama from a century ago, making it a primary source for the study of American regional theater and early mass entertainment. Set in a rural inn, the play unfolds around misunderstandings, verbal sparring, and emotional entanglements among its characters; the dialogue is lively and carries a distinctly period flavor of spoken English, and reading it conveys the humor and warmth that contemporary audiences expected in the theater. For readers familiar with the Library of Congress classification of American literature (PS), it is a suitable sample for understanding the tradition of early twentieth-century American popular drama. It should be noted that this is a script, not a novel, and reading it requires an imaginative engagement with stage space; the Project Gutenberg edition is the original English text and suits readers with some foundation in English reading. Overall, it is better suited as literary-historical material or as supplementary reading for drama enthusiasts than as casual reading for those seeking strong plot.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literary scholars studying the history of American drama and early twentieth-century popular theater
Language enthusiasts interested in American spoken English and stage dialogue from a century ago
Digital-reading collectors interested in public-domain documents from Project Gutenberg
Drama enthusiasts with some English who wish to try reading a script

Not a good fit for

General casual readers looking for a plot-driven novel
Readers not yet proficient in English who need a Chinese translation
Young readers seeking modern narrative pacing and contemporary themes

Reading tips

Read the character list and stage directions first and build the scene in your mind before entering the dialogue; this noticeably lowers the threshold of reading a script.
When you encounter dialect spellings or slang, there is no need to look up every word; grasp the tone and character relationships first, then check meanings afterward.
Read the dialogue aloud in sections to appreciate the rhythm and humor the script was designed for in stage performance.
If using it for research, record the historical background and features of spoken language as material for notes on theater history.

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 a novel or a play?

This is a stage play by Frank Bacon, containing a character list, stage directions, and dialogue; it is not a novel. Reading it requires imagining the stage space and the actors' movements, which differs from the experience of reading a novel. Project Gutenberg classifies it under American literature and offers it free as a public-domain dramatic document.

Can I read this book if my English is not good?

The dialogue carries early twentieth-century American colloquialisms and dialect spellings, which pose some difficulty for non-native readers. If your English reading is not yet proficient, it is advisable to first use a dictionary or a parallel translation to grasp the plot, then return to the original; otherwise you may get stuck on slang and stage directions and lose the pleasure of reading.

What is special about the Project Gutenberg edition?

Project Gutenberg is the earliest project to offer free e-books, and this book is one of its digitized public-domain texts, an electronic edition that can be freely obtained. It preserves the original English content and basic layout, suitable for reading on electronic devices or for research citation, but it does not include annotations or introductions by modern scholars.

What can I gain from reading this play?

The main gain is an understanding of what early twentieth-century American popular drama looked like: character types, modes of humor, stage arrangement, and colloquial style. It has material value for researchers of theater history and the English language, while for general readers it is a light, period-flavored script experience; one should not expect a strong plot impact.

Comments

Find this book

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

Bacon, Frank, 1864-1922 Author · American · 1864–1922

Frank Bacon (1864–1922) was an American actor and playwright. He worked on the stage during his lifetime, and his name is chiefly associated today with the comedy Lightnin'. That play brought him wide popularity with audiences and remains the only work by him preserved in library records. Public information about his early life, education, the origins of his writing, and his specific stage career is very limited, so a full biography cannot be reconstructed. Judging from his surviving work and common assessments, his writing leans toward popular comedy, using light dialogue and everyday situations to create humor for ordinary theatergoers. The success of Lightnin' shows that he understood popular taste, and the play had considerable appeal in its day. Overall, he is an American playwright remembered for a single comedy, and his significance for study lies mainly in that representative work and its reception on stage.