Mortmain

Train, Arthur Cheney, 1875-1945Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 465K words
Chapters: 47

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.Mortmain by Arthur Cheney TrainAuthor: Train, Arthur Cheney, 1875-1945,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Sep 8, 2011

Editor's review

Mortmain is a courtroom novel by Arthur Cheney Train and belongs to the tradition of legal and detective fiction in American literature. Train himself had a legal background, and his works often unfold from a lawyer's perspective, emphasizing procedural detail and the play of human nature. This book builds its plot around the legal concept of mortmain; the title itself signals themes of dead-hand control of property and inheritance disputes, letting readers see how law becomes a force driving narrative. Its strength lies in interweaving courtroom argument, evidentiary reasoning, and character motive, offering suspense along with scrutiny of institutional flaws. Read it not as a modern legal thriller but within the context of early twentieth-century American popular fiction: note the narrator's attitude toward lawyers' professional ethics and the satire of wealth and power behind the case. It suits reading in installments on commutes or short holidays; after each key courtroom passage, review the character relationships and chain of evidence to better appreciate the author's craftsmanship.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Genre readers who enjoy courtroom deduction and lawyer-protagonist novels
Readers interested in early twentieth-century American legal-themed literature
Readers who want to understand the concept of mortmain through fiction
Commuters who need material suited to short, segmented reading

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking modern fast-paced thrillers with strong reversals
Readers impatient with legal procedure and property terminology
Readers expecting a pure romance or a long family-ethics novel

Reading tips

Learn the basic meaning of mortmain before entering the plot; the terminology will be much less of an obstacle.
Read in segments by trial or chapter, and after each segment summarize the issue and characters' positions in one sentence.
Pay attention to depictions of lawyers' professional ethics and treat them as a sample of the era's legal culture.
If reading the original English, mark legal terms and look them up together afterward to avoid interrupting the pace.

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 does "Mortmain" mean in the title?

Mortmain is usually rendered as "perpetual ownership" or "dead hand," referring to a legal arrangement in which property is held permanently by an institution and no longer circulates. The book uses this concept to develop a property and inheritance dispute; understanding its general meaning before reading helps clarify the root of the conflict.

Is this book suitable for law students?

It can serve as supplementary reading. It presents how early twentieth-century American legal fiction imagined law, not current law textbooks. Law students can observe how legal procedure is fictionalized, but should not treat it as a reliable basis for legal practice or jurisprudence.

Do I need to read the original English?

This book comes from Project Gutenberg, so the original English is readily available. If a Chinese translation is available, read the two side by side; when reading English directly, familiarize yourself with legal terms first and proceed chapter by chapter. The language difficulty is that of popular fiction, so there is no need for undue concern.

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About the author

Train, Arthur Cheney, 1875-1945 Author

Arthur Cheney Train (1875–1945) was an American writer; public information about him is limited. His experience as a prosecutor provided rich material for his writing, which focuses largely on crime and the justice system. Nine of his works are held in this collection, including nonfiction crime accounts such as True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office and The Prisoner at the Bar, as well as novels set among lawyers and courtrooms, such as Tutt and Mr. Tutt, McAllister and His Double, Mortmain, and The Goldfish. His style blends documentary realism with dramatic narrative, using cases to reveal the complexities of legal procedure and human nature, and his lawyers are clever and witty figures. These works have had a certain influence on popular literature and legal-themed writing.