Oh! Susannah!

Ambient, Mark, 1860-1937Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.5

Word count: 123K words
Chapters: 13

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.Oh! Susannah! by Mark AmbientAuthor: Ambient, Mark, 1860-1937,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Jun 12, 2007

Editor's review

Oh! Susannah! is an English-language literary work by the British author Mark Ambients, a public-domain book in English language and literature (PR classification). As part of the Project Gutenberg free ebook project, its digitization gives contemporary readers access to an early English dramatic or narrative text. Its value lies mainly in documentary preservation and the study of language and literature: readers can observe the modes of expression, character dialogue, and plot structure of English literature from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century. Since the source provides no details of plot or genre, it is best read and examined as a public-domain literary text rather than approached as a strongly plotted popular novel. It suits slow reading with annotations in a quiet setting, or textual analysis exercises in an English literature course. The electronic edition is convenient for keyword searching and version comparison, and works well as an introductory sample for understanding the history of public-domain ebook digitization.

Who it's for

A good fit for

English literature students who need public-domain English texts for language analysis
Readers interested in English works of the late nineteenth to early twentieth century
Learners who want to practice close reading in English using public-domain ebooks
Enthusiasts of literary history studying the Project Gutenberg ebook project

Not a good fit for

Casual readers seeking strongly plotted, fast-paced stories
Readers with weak English reading skills who need Chinese annotations
Readers expecting detailed author biographies and background interpretation

Reading tips

Read through once for the overall thread, then revisit dialogue and language details.
Mark unfamiliar expressions, then look them up afterward and compile a vocabulary list.
Read alongside other English literary works of the same period to observe stylistic differences.
Use the electronic edition's search function to trace recurring images or keywords.

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 suitable for English beginners?

Not really. The work is in the original English, and the source provides no Chinese annotations or vocabulary list, so readers with weak English foundations may struggle with sentence patterns and word choice. It is better attempted after building some English reading ability, or with an annotated edition for support.

What are the features of the Project Gutenberg edition?

Project Gutenberg is one of the earliest projects offering free ebooks, founded by Michael Hart in 1971. This edition is a public-domain electronic text, easy to obtain free, search in full, and copy and cite; it suits study and research but usually comes without a modern introduction or detailed annotations.

Do I need to know the author's background before reading?

The source provides only basic information such as the author's birth and death years, without expanding on biography or creative background. Readers can read the text directly first and then consult reliable literary history sources as needed; the lack of author research is no reason to give up reading.

Comments

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About the author

Ambient, Mark, 1860-1937 Author · British · 1860–1937

Mark Ambient (1860–1937) was a British actor and playwright active on the London West End stage, where he wrote a number of stage plays over the course of his career. He worked during the flourishing of British commercial theatre in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and his plays were written for performance, with an emphasis on plot momentum and dialogue suited to West End audiences of the time. His representative work, Oh! Susannah!, is the main window into his dramatic writing and is still occasionally mentioned by later writers. Public information about the details of his life and the full range of his work is limited; existing records centre on his dual identity as actor and playwright and on his sustained activity in the West End. On the whole, he was a professional theatre man whose practice centred on the stage, and his writing and performing together define his place in British theatre history, offering some reference value for the study of the commercial theatre ecology of the West End in his day.