P'laski's Tunament

Page, Thomas Nelson, 1853-1922Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 33K words
Chapters: 4

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.P'laski's Tunament by Thomas Nelson PageAuthor: Page, Thomas Nelson, 1853-1922,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Oct 12, 2007

Editor's review

"P'laski's Tunament" is a short work by the American writer Thomas Nelson Page, issued in Project Gutenberg's public-domain ebook series. Page was known for his depictions of Southern life and local color, and this piece continues that narrative tradition, centering on a country-style "tournament" and featuring dialogue and scenes rich in local flavor. The work is brief, making it a useful sample of late nineteenth- to early twentieth-century Southern short fiction and a way to observe dialect spelling and folk humor as literary techniques. The electronic edition is in the original English with simple formatting, convenient for quick reading or excerpting. Because both subject matter and language bear clear marks of their time and region, readers should approach it with some knowledge of Southern American literary context and avoid judging its character relationships and expressions by contemporary standards alone.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in Southern American local-color fiction and short narrative
Students of English literature studying dialect writing and local-color technique
Advanced learners who want to practice reading with shorter English texts
Readers collecting public-domain American literature ebooks

Not a good fit for

Beginners with weak English who need sentence-by-sentence annotation
General readers who prefer modern full-length novels
Readers unfamiliar with Southern American history and dialect who are unwilling to look things up

Reading tips

First learn the basic features of Southern American local-color literature, then enter the text.
When you encounter dialect spellings, read them aloud and use the sound to identify the word.
Read alongside other Southern short stories and compare narrative perspective and humor.
After finishing, sort out the characters and sequence of events to check your grasp of the plot.

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 does Tunament in the title mean?

It is a dialect-spelled word in the work, usually corresponding to English tournament (a contest or competition). The author uses it to create a local accent and rustic atmosphere; its precise reference should be understood in the context of the text.

Is this work suitable for English beginners?

Not very suitable for absolute beginners or elementary readers. The text contains dialect spellings and period expressions and requires some vocabulary and background knowledge. It is better attempted after reaching intermediate English reading ability.

What background should I know before reading?

It helps to first learn about the late nineteenth- to early twentieth-century Southern American local-color literary tradition and the rustic characters, dialect dialogue, and humorous tone common to such works, which will aid understanding of how the text expresses itself.

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About the author

Page, Thomas Nelson, 1853-1922 Author

Thomas Nelson Page (1853–1922) was an American writer. Public information about the details of his life is limited, but the twenty-four works by him held in this collection give a clear sense of his writing. His work is rooted in the American South: the novel Red Rock: A Chronicle of Reconstruction confronts the social changes that followed the Civil War, and Gordon Keith likewise unfolds Southern manners and the upheavals of the era. Short works such as The Burial of the Guns and The Spectre in the Cart often deal with memories of war, rural legends, and stories with a touch of mystery. Page's writing is often nostalgic, attentive to local scenery and human temperament, and his works are an important sample for understanding the literary tastes of the late nineteenth-century American South.