Princess White Flame

Crownfield, Gertrude, 1867-1945Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.5

Word count: 156K words
Chapters: 16

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.Princess White Flame by Gertrude CrownfieldAuthor: Crownfield, Gertrude, 1867-1945,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Oct 6, 2018

Editor's review

Princess White Flame is a work of juvenile literature by Gertrude Crownfield, in the children's and young adult category. The author, born in 1867, wrote with the typical temper of early twentieth-century children's literature: clear narrative, abundant imagination, and elements such as princesses and fantastical realms carrying themes of courage and growth. Released free by Project Gutenberg, the book is a lightweight sample of early English-language children's literature. For researchers it can supplement material on period genres and narrative styles; for general readers it suits English extensive reading or shared parent-child reading. Note that it is in the original English with an old-fashioned style, and modern young readers may need some guidance. Overall it is better as literary-historical and language-learning material than as a current children's bestseller.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers studying early English children's literature and the fairy-tale tradition
Parents and teachers seeking English extensive reading material for children
Young readers who enjoy classic princess fairy tales and can accept an old-fashioned style
Learners practicing reading with original English public-domain books

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer modern fast-paced fantasy narrative
Beginners with weak English who need a Chinese parallel text
Young children expecting richly illustrated picture books
Adult readers uninterested in classic fairy-tale motifs

Reading tips

Read the first two chapters to gauge language difficulty and narrative pace, then decide whether to read through or selectively.
For shared reading, read aloud in sections and discuss the princess's choices and motives as you go.
For English extensive reading, don't look up every word; grasp the plot first, then revisit unfamiliar words.
After finishing, compare it with similar classic fairy tales, noting differences in characterization and thematic expression.

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 age is this book suitable for?

This is a classic children's work in the original English with an old-fashioned style; upper-elementary and middle-grade students with some English reading ability are advised to try it. Younger children are better served by a parent reading aloud and explaining, or by an edition with Chinese translation or annotation.

Is the story a complete novel or a short-story collection?

According to Project Gutenberg's classification, the book belongs to juvenile literature. The source does not provide details of its chapter structure; readers are advised to open the e-book, check the table of contents first, and plan their reading according to its length.

Why read this old fairy tale?

Its value lies in presenting the narrative style and values of early twentieth-century English children's literature, making it supplementary material for literary history and language learning. For readers who love classic fairy tales, it is also a free and easily obtained original English book.

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About the author

Crownfield, Gertrude, 1867-1945 Author

Gertrude Crownfield (1867-1945) was an author of English-language children's literature active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Details of her life are scarce in publicly available sources, and neither her nationality nor precise biographical facts are clearly recorded. Two of her works are held in this collection, The Shadow Witch and Princess White Flame. Judging from their titles and characters, her writing draws on fairy-tale and fantasy material, often building fantastical plots around such classic figures as witches and princesses in plain language suited to young readers. These two works reflect the fairy-story tradition common in Anglo-American children's books of the period; although they did not enter the mainstream literary canon, they offer concrete examples for studying the thematic preferences and narrative style of popular children's literature of that era.