Robert Tournay: A Romance of the French Revolution

Sage, William, 1864-Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.6
Word count
492K words
Chapters
50

Tags

English Originals Historical FictionForeign Literature Fate and FortunePower GamesLove StoryRomanticismTurbulent Era19th CenturyFrench Revolution

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.Robert Tournay: A Romance of the French Revolution by William SageAuthor: Sage, William, 1864-,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jan 4, 2011

Editor's review

This is a historical romance set against the French Revolution. The author, William Sage, was born in 1864, and the work shows the typical craft of late nineteenth-century historical romance: fictional characters' fates are threaded through real historical events, and love and loyalty are tested amid turbulent times. For readers who want to experience the atmosphere of the Revolution through fiction, the book offers an entry that balances plot and historical feel; the English original is freely available from Project Gutenberg, making it convenient to obtain and a light choice for reading in the original English. Note that the historical details and character portrayals serve the romance narrative and should not be treated as serious historical scholarship. As you read, watch how the author handles the relationship between personal feeling and the tide of the age, and the narrative perspective of a nineteenth-century American writer on a European revolutionary subject.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. First learn the basic timeline of the French Revolution; the novel's place in history is then easier to locate.
  2. Keep pen and paper to note characters and their allegiances, so you do not lose the thread amid names and political positions.
  3. Read alongside real historical events, distinguishing the romance's fiction from the historical record.
  4. For the English original, read one or two chapters a day; with long sentences, grasp the main structure first, then return for details.

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
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50

FAQ

Is this book a history or a novel? It is a novel, a historical romance that unfolds fictional characters' fates and love stories against the French Revolution. Although it involves real historical events and period atmosphere, the plot and relationships serve the narrative and should not be cited as historical fact.
How difficult is the English, and what level is it suited to? The work dates from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, with longer sentences and more classical diction, making it harder than contemporary popular fiction. It suits readers with a college-level English reading base who are used to classic literature; beginners may use an annotated edition or read a Chinese summary first before attempting the original.
What are the features of the Gutenberg edition? Project Gutenberg provides a free electronic text that is easy to obtain, search, and copy. This edition is the English original and usually contains no modern notes or introduction, so readers must supply historical background themselves; the layout is mainly plain text, suitable for reading on electronic devices.

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

Sage, William, 1864- Author · 1864

William Sage (born 1864) was an English-language author about whose life very little is known; publicly available information is limited, and his nationality, education, and professional career cannot be reliably established. Only one work can currently be confirmed, Robert Tournay: A Romance of the French Revolution. As the title and subtitle suggest, the novel is set against the background of the French Revolution and belongs to the tradition of historical romance, combining adventure with romance in a style close to the historical novels popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Owing to the scarcity of sources, Sage's other writings, the reception of his work, and his literary standing remain to be further investigated. For researchers, he is at present mentioned chiefly as the author of a single historical novel.