New Faces

Myra KellyProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.1

Word count: 211K words
Chapters: 22

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.New Faces by Myra KellyAuthor: Kelly, Myra, 1876-1910,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Mar 24, 2005

Editor's review

New Faces is a work by Myra Kelly (1876–1910), classified under American and Canadian literature and made available as a free eBook by Project Gutenberg. Kelly's writing often draws on the immigrant children and public-school life she knew well, and this book likewise excels in group portraits and everyday scenes, with a gentle tone and an eye for observation. Its value lies not in grand narrative but in its detailed rendering of immigrant families, classrooms, and neighborhood life in early twentieth-century American cities, letting readers sense the social atmosphere and speech habits of the time through sketch-like character vignettes. As a public-domain electronic text, it is suitable as supplementary reading in American literature courses for understanding popular writing and immigrant themes, and also suits readers who enjoy lifelike character sketches for casual browsing. Paying attention to depictions of accents, family customs, and school scenes will be more rewarding than pursuing plot.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in American immigrant themes and early twentieth-century urban life
Students taking American literature courses who need popular works as supplementary reading
Readers who enjoy character sketches and lifelike short pieces rather than strong plots
Readers who want to experience the spoken language and immigrant family atmosphere of the time through the original English

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer strong plots, suspense, or fast-paced narrative
Readers seeking a systematic understanding of American immigration policy and history
Those with limited English reading experience who find old-fashioned colloquial expressions difficult

Reading tips

Read it as a collection of character sketches, noting each character's personality and situation after each piece.
Pay attention to the colloquial speech and customs of immigrant families, which can be understood against the immigration history of the time.
No need to read straight through; choose pieces by interest, suitable for fragmented reading time.
After reading, try summarizing each piece's core scene in one or two sentences to grasp the overall atmosphere.

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 short story collection?

From the available information, it is a literary work by Myra Kelly that excels in character and everyday scene depiction, closer to character sketches and slices of life than to a long novel driven by a single main plot. It is better approached by pieces or fragments, focusing on characters and scenes, than by looking for continuous plot.

Can I read this book without knowing American immigration history?

You can, but your understanding will be reduced. The book involves immigrant families, public schools, and urban neighborhood life; without any knowledge of early twentieth-century American immigration, the social meaning of some details is easily missed. Reading a brief overview of immigration history first will make the text more rewarding.

How difficult is the original English?

The work contains colloquial expressions of immigrant children and families of the time, and some spellings and sentence patterns may differ from standard written English, which will feel unfamiliar at first. Readers with general English reading ability who are willing to use notes and a dictionary can finish it; for easier reading, start with relevant background material in Chinese before attempting the original.

Comments

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About the author

Myra Kelly Author · Irish-American · 1875–1910

Myra Kelly (1875–1910) was an Irish-American teacher and writer. Born in Dublin, she moved to New York as a child and later taught for many years in New York public schools, an experience that became the main source of her writing. Drawing on the lives of immigrant children on the East Side, she wrote story collections such as Little Citizens: The Humours of School Life, Little Aliens, and New Faces. Her writing is humorous and sympathetic, deftly capturing how immigrant children spoke and felt as they adjusted to a new environment. Theodore Roosevelt once praised her work in a letter, and her stories found a readership in the United States of her time. She died of tuberculosis in Torquay, England, in 1910, only in her mid-thirties, and her writing career was brief. Public information about her education, her specific teaching posts, and the sales of her books is limited; what is known of her life comes mainly from her works and scattered records.