Returning Home

Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.5

Word count: 48K words
Chapters: 5

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. Returning Home by Anthony Trollope. Author: Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882. Language: English. Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature. Release Date: Feb 1, 2003

Editor's review

Returning Home is a short work by Anthony Trollope, available in Project Gutenberg's free eBook library. Trollope is known for his depictions of Victorian English social customs and his skill at revealing characters' subtle psychological and moral situations within everyday scenes; this work likewise continues his focus on family relationships, homecoming, and changes in identity. Its brevity makes it a good introductory sample of Trollope's narrative and allows readers studying Victorian short fiction to quickly grasp his language style and narrative pacing. As a public-domain electronic text, the original English is easy to obtain and suits reading in fragmented time such as commutes or lunch breaks, as well as classroom excerpt discussion. Note that this is the original English text without Chinese translation or annotations, so readers need some English reading ability.

Who it's for

A good fit for

English readers seeking an initial sense of Trollope's narrative style
Teachers needing teaching materials for Victorian short fiction
Readers who enjoy English public-domain short stories in fragmented time
Researchers studying nineteenth-century English literature and family themes

Not a good fit for

Readers who want a Chinese translation and are not comfortable with the English original
Lovers of full-length novels with long plots and complex subplots

Reading tips

Read through once to grasp the plot, then revisit the wording of dialogue and psychological description.
Read alongside other Trollope short stories to observe his repeated treatment of family themes.
Note spatial and identity details in the homecoming scenes while reading, to facilitate classroom or book-club discussion.

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

Is this book in Chinese or English?

This is the original English text, a public-domain electronic text from Project Gutenberg, without Chinese translation or annotations; some English reading ability is needed before reading.

Is it long, and when is it suitable to read?

This is a short work of modest length, suitable for reading in one sitting during fragmented time such as commutes or lunch breaks, and also convenient for repeated close reading.

Can I understand it without a literary background?

Yes. The story is mainly set in everyday family scenes, and the language is nineteenth-century English; initial reading may require adapting to the sentence patterns, but overall it does not depend on specialized background knowledge.

Comments

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About the author

Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882 Author

Anthony Trollope (1815–1882) was a prolific English novelist of the Victorian era, with 83 works held in this collection. He is best known for the Barsetshire novels, including The Last Chronicle of Barset, Barchester Towers, and Framley Parsonage, which are set in a fictional English county and portray the daily life, social manners, and power struggles of the clergy and gentry. Other major works, such as The Way We Live Now, The Prime Minister, Orley Farm, and Can You Forgive Her?, turn to politics, business, and marriage, revealing with careful restraint and gentle irony the tension between social convention and personal ambition. Public information is limited, yet his plain narrative style, large casts of clearly drawn characters, and depiction of Victorian social structure retain lasting value for readers.