Pictures of Canadian Life: A Record of Actual Experiences

Ritchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing), 1820-1898Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
247K words
Chapters
25

Tags

English Originals Documentary Literature Human GeographySocial ObservationNature ObservationDaily ReflectionsLife EssaysDocumentary NarrativeExotic CultureCross-Cultural View

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.Pictures of Canadian Life: A Record of Actual Experiences by J. Ewing RitchieAuthor: Ritchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing), 1820-1898,Language: English, Class: F1001: North America local history: Canada, Release Date: Feb 13, 2012

Editor's review

This book is a record of Canadian travels based on the personal experiences of the nineteenth-century British writer James Ewing Ritchie. It belongs to the category of North American local history and was released by Project Gutenberg as an English public-domain ebook. Its value lies not in systematic historical argument but in first-person vignettes of Canadian society, scenery, and daily life at the time, written in the distinctive voice of a period observer. For readers studying nineteenth-century Canadian social history, immigrant life, or the tradition of British travel writing on North America, it is a readable primary source. The prose is in English and bears the marks of the Victorian era, so modern readers will need some adjustment. It is better suited as supplementary historical material and casual reading than as a travel guide or scholarly monograph.

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Reading tips

  1. Read the table of contents and chapter titles first, then select passages closely related to your research topic for close reading.
  2. Take notes on the author's standpoint and period biases as you read, for later citation and analysis.
  3. Pair it with general histories of Canada to compensate for its lack of systematic coverage.
  4. Treat it as casual reading material, one or two chapters at a time, without forcing yourself to finish it in one sitting.

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.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a work of nonfiction? According to the source material, the book's subtitle is "A Record of Actual Experiences"; it is a documentary work based on the author's firsthand observations and is classified as North American local history, not a fictional novel. Its content is grounded in the author's observations and experiences in Canada.
Does the book contain practical information for contemporary travel? No. The book was written in the nineteenth century and records the Canadian society and scenery of that time; it contains no practical contemporary travel information such as transportation, accommodation, or visas. Readers who need a travel guide should choose contemporary publications.
How difficult is the English, and can non-native readers manage it? The book is written in nineteenth-century English, with sentence structures and vocabulary bearing a Victorian style. It is not overly difficult overall, but it is distant from modern English. Readers with university-level English reading ability can work through it with the help of a dictionary; proceeding chapter by chapter and keeping a record of unfamiliar words is recommended.

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About the author

Ritchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing), 1820-1898 Author

J. Ewing Ritchie (James Ewing Ritchie, 1820–1898) was a nineteenth-century British writer; twenty-one of his works are held in this collection, while details of his life are limited in publicly available sources. His writing consists chiefly of documentary observation and recollection. Representative works such as Days and Nights in London, The Night Side of London and The Religious Life of London focus on Victorian urban society, recording street scenes, nighttime trades and religious activity; East Anglia: Personal Recollections and Historical Associations and Some of Our East Coast Towns turn to local history and personal experience; Pictures of Canadian Life records actual experiences, and The Real Gladstone: An Anecdotal Biography portrays a political figure through anecdote. His plain, detailed style combines a journalist's immediacy with an essayist's familiar tone, offering vivid material for later readers of nineteenth-century British urban and local life.