Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton

Daniel DefoeProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.4
Word count
458K words
Chapters
46

Tags

English Originals Military Historical ReappraisalMilitary StrategyWar ReportagePolitical AllegoryWar of Spanish SuccessionSoldier's MemoirWandering JourneyAuthorship DebateMemoir StyleSocial Observation

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.Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton by Daniel DefoeAuthor: Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Dec 23, 2004

Editor's review

This Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton has come down to us under Defoe's name and belongs to the public-domain corpus of English literature; it is distributed free of charge by Project Gutenberg. Written in the first-person memoir mode, it recounts an officer's observations and experiences during the European wars, combining personal experience with the spirit of the age. Its appeal lies in a plain, concrete narrative voice: readers can sense the texture of early eighteenth-century military life, marches and battles, and foreign travels, and may also treat it as a sample for observing how English memoirs were written at the time. As a public-domain electronic book, it is easy to search, quote, and compare, making it suitable for extended reading by those interested in English literature, military-historical narrative, or the memoir genre. Note that this is the original English text, with old-style spellings and historical context; readers should consult background sources as needed and should not use it as a rigorous modern work of historiography.

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Reading tips

  1. Learn the background of, for example, the Anglo-Spanish War before starting the text to reduce comprehension difficulties
  2. Read in instalments by chapter; when encountering old-style spellings, read through the paragraph first and then look up word meanings
  3. Read alongside other works by Defoe to appreciate the difference between memoir writing and novelistic narrative
  4. Take notes on people and places as you read to help clarify the narrative threads

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
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a genuine memoir? It has long circulated in the form of Captain George Carleton's military memoirs, signed by Defoe, but its authenticity and authorship are debated in scholarship. General readers may read it as historical narrative in the memoir mode, without assuming it to be either completely factual or purely fictional.
Can I read this book if my English is not good? This is the original English public-domain text, with old-style spellings and longer sentences, so readers with weaker English will find it difficult. They may first read an annotated translation or introductory material to become familiar with the background, then try the original; they may also read only the chapters that interest them.
Why is the recommended edition from Project Gutenberg? Project Gutenberg was an early provider of free electronic books, and this book is the public-domain electronic text it released. Its advantages are that it is free and easy to search, copy, and quote, but it usually has no modern translation or notes, so readers must supplement background material themselves.

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About the author

Daniel Defoe Author · British · 1660–1731

Daniel Defoe (1661?–1731) was an English novelist, political writer and journalist, and a founding figure of realist fiction in the English Enlightenment. His birth year is recorded variously; the library lists 1660, and he died in 1731. A prolific author, he is represented here by 59 works, the best known being Robinson Crusoe, alongside Moll Flanders and A Journal of the Plague Year. His novels often follow individual fortunes and adventures, written in a plain, concrete and realistic style that presents characters' circumstances and choices in unadorned narrative, and his influence on the development of English realist fiction is far-reaching. Commonly classified under inspirational growth, his works are still read today as important accounts of endurance and self-reliance.