Pelham — Volume 04

Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron, 1803-1873Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.2

Word count: 129K 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. Pelham — Volume 04 by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton. Author: Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron, 1803-1873. Language: English. Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature. Release Date: Mar 1, 2005.

Editor's review

Volume 04 of Pelham concludes this four-volume novel, picking up the characters and plot threads established in the first three volumes and delivering the book's ending. For readers who have come this far, the value of this volume lies chiefly in seeing how the narrative is drawn together, how the characters' fates are settled, and how the author handles theme and interest in the final pages. The Project Gutenberg electronic edition offers the complete English text in searchable form, making it suitable as a source text for close reading and literary study. One caveat: this volume is not a good starting point for beginners or for reading on its own, since it depends heavily on the relationships and plot premises built up in the first three volumes; reading it without the earlier installments will greatly reduce comprehension and enjoyment. In addition, the 19th-century prose style is remote from contemporary readers, so patience and reference works are advised. Overall, this is a concluding volume suited to readers who intend to read the whole novel and to students studying 19th-century British fiction.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who have finished the first three volumes and wish to complete the novel
Literature students studying structure and endings in 19th-century British fiction
Teachers who need a complete public-domain English text for quotation or lesson preparation
English learners with the patience for Victorian narrative prose

Not a good fit for

Readers who have not read the first three volumes and want to start with this one
Readers expecting a standalone story who do not care about prior connections
Readers who prefer modern, concise prose and find 19th-century long sentences difficult

Reading tips

Briefly review the characters and unresolved threads of the first three volumes before reading to avoid confusion.
Note how the author closes each subplot; a character-outcome chart can be kept as you read.
After finishing, revisit the opening setup of Volume One to appreciate the structural echoes across the book.
For seminar use, discuss the handling of the ending in comparison with novels of the same period.

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

Can I read Volume 04 without having read the first three volumes?

Not advisable. This volume concludes the book, and its relationships, conflicts, and suspense all rest on the first three volumes. Reading it directly makes character motives and prior events hard to follow and greatly reduces enjoyment. Reading from Volume One in order is recommended.

Does this volume contain the complete ending?

As the final volume of a four-volume novel, it serves to draw the book together and account for the main characters and plot threads. The specific ending should be confirmed from the text itself; readers should verify how each subplot is handled through actual reading rather than assuming in advance.

Is the electronic edition suitable for academic citation?

The Gutenberg text is complete and searchable, making it suitable as a reading and general-reference source. For scholarly writing, however, quotations from classic works should usually be checked against an authoritative print or scholarly edition, with version details noted, to ensure accuracy.

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

Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron, 1803-1873 Author

Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron Lytton (1803–1873) was an English novelist, playwright and politician. The library holds 220 of his works, spanning a wide range of subjects: the historical novel The Last Days of Pompeii, set against the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79; Rienzi, the Last of the Roman Tribunes, on the Roman tribune Cola di Rienzo; and Eugene Aram, a narrative drawn from a criminal case. He also wrote society novels such as Pelham, the family portrait The Caxtons, and the historical study Athens: Its Rise and Fall; the short tale The Haunted and the Haunters, or The House and the Brain reflects his interest in the supernatural. His style is ornate and his plots elaborate, combining romantic colouring with social satire. Public information is limited, and systematic Chinese-language appraisal of his life and work remains scarce.