One Year Abroad

Howard, Blanche Willis, 1847-1898Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.1

Word count: 361K words
Chapters: 37

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.One Year Abroad by Blanche Willis HowardAuthor: Howard, Blanche Willis, 1847-1898,Language: English, Class: D: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere, Release Date: Mar 25, 2011

Editor's review

One Year Abroad by Blanche Willis Howard is a travelogue of a year spent in Europe, recording the author's observations and impressions. Written in the first person, it combines observation, narrative, and personal reflection, and stands as a specimen of nineteenth-century American women's travel writing, offering a glimpse of how the American educated class of the time viewed European culture, cities, and daily life. As a public-domain ebook from Project Gutenberg, the text is easily accessible and well suited as supplementary material for the study of travel literature and cross-cultural writing. Its value lies not in practical travel advice but in presenting a historically situated way of seeing: readers may note the author's judging tone toward foreign customs and how the narrator's own cultural standpoint shapes what is seen and felt. Best read slowly and savored by those interested in nineteenth-century European and American travel literature and women's writing.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in nineteenth-century travel literature and transatlantic cultural exchange
Scholars and students of women's writing and autobiographical narrative
Readers who enjoy leisurely travelogues and are willing to engage with a historical context

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking practical, contemporary travel guides and information about Europe
Readers of plot-driven, fast-paced genre fiction

Reading tips

Read in chronological order, noting changes in the narrator's mood and perspective over the year
Record the author's judgments of local customs as you read and reflect on her cultural standpoint
Read alongside other travelogues of the same period to compare narrative style and areas of focus

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 is this book about?

It records the author's observations during a year in Europe, covering cityscapes, daily life, and local customs, interspersed with personal impressions and reflections. It is a nineteenth-century travelogue focused on observation and experience rather than systematic introduction.

Is the "one year" in the title a strict year?

The title refers to a period of residence abroad, and the book unfolds through experiences and observations. Readers should not treat it as a day-by-day diary but as a travelogue written around this period of life abroad.

Is it suitable as English-learning material?

It can serve as extensive reading material, but the text dates from the nineteenth century, with period features in syntax and vocabulary and some expressions remote from contemporary English. It is best suited to readers with a foundation in English; unfamiliar usages can be understood from context.

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About the author

Howard, Blanche Willis, 1847-1898 Author · American · 1847–1898

Blanche Willis Howard (1847–1898) was an American novelist. Her fiction drew largely on scenes of social life in Europe and America, and the characters she portrayed move within such social settings; this choice of subject forms the basic character of her work. At present only one of her books, One Year Abroad, is held in the collection, and no other titles are recorded there; publicly available information is also limited, so her life and the full range of her writing cannot be described in greater detail. On the evidence available, her writing focuses less on intricate or sensational plotting than on observing everyday social interaction and the situations of her characters in Europe and America, and readers may gain some sense of her narrative style and concerns from One Year Abroad.