Old Kaskaskia

Catherwood, Mary Hartwell, 1847-1902Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.9

Word count: 184K words
Chapters: 19

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. Old Kaskaskia by Mary Hartwell Catherwood. Author: Catherwood, Mary Hartwell, 1847-1902, Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: May 19, 2006

Editor's review

Old Kaskaskia is a historical novel by Mary Hartwell Catherwood set in the early French colonial settlement of Kaskaskia in Illinois, portraying frontier society and the fates of its characters around the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Catherwood was known for her delicate depiction of local history and daily life; the book interweaves historical events with fictional characters, letting readers feel the cultural encounters among French settlers, Native peoples, and the rising American power of the colonial period. As a public-domain e-book, it preserves the language and style of the original text and suits readers interested in early American literature and local history. Reading it alongside maps and historical background will bring out the meaning of its geographical and period details. The pacing is slow and emphasizes atmosphere and character over a driving plot, so it rewards quiet, unhurried reading.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in the early colonial history of the American Midwest
Scholars and students of nineteenth-century American regional literature
Readers who enjoy historical fiction with a strong atmosphere and slow pacing
Advanced readers seeking public-domain English texts for language study

Not a good fit for

Readers of popular fiction who prefer fast pacing and strong plot conflict
Readers completely unfamiliar with the colonial period who are unwilling to look up background
Readers seeking a Chinese translation or a bilingual edition

Reading tips

Before reading, learn about Kaskaskia as a French colonial settlement to better understand the characters' circumstances.
Read with an early map of Illinois to follow the places and the characters' movements.
Look up unfamiliar historical terms as you go; there is no need to finish in one sitting, and you can proceed chapter by chapter.
After finishing, compare it with other works of American frontier literature to see how different authors write about the same region.

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 in Chinese or English?

This is an English-language public-domain e-book released by Project Gutenberg; the text is in English, and no official Chinese translation is currently available. It suits readers with some English reading ability or those who want the original text as material for studying early American regional literature.

What historical background do I need to read this book?

It helps to know about eighteenth-century French colonization in the Mississippi Valley and Kaskaskia's status as an early settlement in the Illinois region. Understanding the relations among French settlers, Native peoples, and later American immigrants will help you grasp the characters' motives and conflicts.

Is this book suitable for learning English?

It can serve as advanced English reading material, but it contains historical place names, French loanwords, and nineteenth-century literary expression, so the language is fairly difficult. It is best for readers at or above college English level, with a dictionary at hand; it is not suitable as introductory material.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Catherwood, Mary Hartwell, 1847-1902 Author

Catherwood, Mary Hartwell (1847-1902) was a nineteenth-century American writer whose life and biographical details are only sparsely recorded in publicly available sources. Nineteen of her works are held in this collection, most of them drawing on early North American history and frontier life, especially the French colonial period in the Great Lakes region. Her representative works include historical novels such as Lazarre, The Romance of Dollard, and The Story of Tonty, as well as story collections such as Mackinac and Lake Stories, The Skeleton On Round Island, and The Indian On The Trail, along with pieces such as The Mothers Of Honoré and A British Islander. Her writing often draws on historical events and local legends, with a romantic tone that emphasizes atmosphere and the intertwining of character and fate, offering later readers a literary window into the history and folk narratives of the Great Lakes region.