Other Things Being Equal

Wolf, Emma, 1865-1932Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.2

Word count: 365K 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.Other Things Being Equal by Emma WolfAuthor: Wolf, Emma, 1865-1932,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Aug 1, 1999

Editor's review

Other Things Being Equal is a novel by Emma Wolf, a public-domain ebook in the American and Canadian literature category. The available information indicates it is an American novel from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century; details of plot and characters are limited, so it is best read as a sample for observing women's writing and social issues of that era. The value of such works often lies not in strong plot excitement but in the everyday texture of family relations, marriage views, and identity of the time. When reading, pay attention to the narrator's tone, the value judgments in characters' dialogue, and how the author handles the tension between personal choice and social expectation. Because Chinese translations and detailed introductions are lacking, readers need some patience with English reading and a willingness to fill in the historical background themselves. It is not for readers seeking fast-paced stories, but for literary history enthusiasts and English majors it is a low-cost source text.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literature students interested in American women's writing
Intermediate and advanced learners who want to practice reading English fiction
Readers interested in late nineteenth-century American social themes
Reading groups that need public-domain English fiction material

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking strong plots and fast-paced narrative
Beginner learners with insufficient stamina for English reading
Readers who need detailed annotations and a Chinese introduction

Reading tips

Read the first two chapters first to judge whether the narrative pace and language difficulty suit you
Keep a character relationship chart while reading to avoid confusion over English names
Understand characters' choices in light of late nineteenth-century American women's education and marriage
Read alongside short stories by contemporary women writers to compare themes

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

There is no Chinese translation. Will it be very difficult to read?

This is a public-domain English novel with moderately high language difficulty; sentence structure and cultural background may cause obstacles. Try reading one chapter first. If there are too many new words per page, read the relevant chapters of a Chinese history of American literature to build background, then return to the original; this will be more efficient.

What is this book mainly about?

The available information only gives the author, language, and literary category; no detailed plot is provided. It can be confirmed as a novel in the American and Canadian literature category; specific characters and story require reading the text. It is suggested to read it as a period text and focus on issues of family, marriage, and identity.

Is the quality of the public-domain ebook version reliable?

Public-domain ebooks are compiled through different channels; layout, punctuation, and spelling may vary, and some places may contain recognition errors. When you encounter clearly awkward sentences, infer from context or compare with other editions; do not take individual errors as the author's original meaning.

Comments

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About the author

Wolf, Emma, 1865-1932 Author · American · 1865–1932

Emma Wolf (1865–1932) was an American Jewish novelist whose work focuses largely on women's circumstances and the lives of Jewish immigrants. During her lifetime her best-known work was the novel Other Things Being Equal, which centers on a woman's choices between marriage and social expectation and reflects the moral concerns and realistic observation common in women's writing of the period. Public information about the details of her life is limited, and only one of her works is currently held in this collection, making it difficult to assess her style and literary standing comprehensively on that basis. Judging from the work that survives, she tends to carry social issues through everyday domestic scenes, in a plain style with concretely situated characters, offering some reference value for understanding American Jewish communities and women's lives in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.