My Adventure in the Flying Scotsman A Romance of London and North-Western

Phillpotts, Eden, 1862-1960Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
51K words
Chapters
6

Tags

English Originals Foreign Literature Rail TravelAdventure JourneyLove EntanglementsJourney RomanceRomantic EncounterFlying TrainPopular NarrativeSocial ObservationVictorian EraEnglish Life

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.My Adventure in the Flying Scotsman; A Romance of London and North-WesternAuthor: Phillpotts, Eden, 1862-1960,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Jun 12, 2017

Editor's review

From the prolific English writer Eden Phillpotts, this work uses a railway journey as its narrative frame, weaving encounters along the London and North-Western line into a romantic adventure. Phillpotts was known for his delicate rendering of English rural life and ordinary people's emotional ups and downs, and this book is no exception: the scenery beyond the carriage window, the chatter of fellow passengers, and the unexpected turns of the journey together create a slow, gentle reading experience. As a free Project Gutenberg eBook, it is highly accessible and makes a good introduction to late nineteenth-century English railway culture and popular fiction. Readers need not look for thrilling plot twists; instead, they can attend to the author's portrayal of period atmosphere and character psychology, treating the book as a leisurely literary excursion. For those studying English regional literature or railway-themed fiction, it also offers a light but meaningful sample.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read a chapter or two first to get a feel for the language rhythm before deciding whether to read the whole book.
  2. Consult a map of place names along the London to North-Western railway line to enhance immersion.
  3. Don't look up every unfamiliar word; focus first on characters and scene atmosphere.
  4. For English study, excerpt descriptive and dialogue passages for close reading and imitation.

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

FAQ

Is this book long or short? The materials do not specify the length; judging by the title and subject, it is a novella-length narrative built around a single journey. Refer to the actual chapter count shown in the eBook's table of contents, and read it section by section.
How difficult is the English? The English dates from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, with long sentences and ample description, making it moderately to fairly difficult. It suits readers with at least CET-4-level reading ability who are used to classic fiction; beginners may use annotations or a parallel translation.
Why read this book? It is short and freely available, offering a low-cost way to experience popular fiction in the English railway-travel vein and to appreciate Phillpotts's delicate depiction of rural scenery and travelers' psychology. It works well as a transitional text for reading classic English.

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About the author

Phillpotts, Eden, 1862-1960 Author

Eden Phillpotts (1862-1960) was a prolific English author whose works span novels and short stories. Sixteen of his books are included here, among them Children of the Mist, The Red Redmaynes, The Grey Room, The Spinners, The Torch and Other Tales, The Human Boy, The Human Boy and the War, and The Poacher's Wife. These works show him building suspenseful and emotionally charged narratives around rural settings and family relationships, with a style that combines realism and romance. Some of his books centre on boyhood and growth, and are therefore classed as inspirational coming-of-age reading. Public information about the details of his life is limited, yet his works hold a modest place in English and American popular fiction, offering readers a glimpse of the variety of early twentieth-century British storytelling.