Seets i' Paris

John HartleyProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.4

Word count: 168K words
Chapters: 17

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.Seets i' Paris by John HartleyAuthor: Hartley, John, 1839-1915,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Jun 10, 2014

Editor's review

John Hartley was a nineteenth-century Yorkshire dialect poet, and Seets i' Paris is written in the Yorkshire dialect, recording the sights and impressions of a trip to Paris. Its value lies not in offering a standard travel guide but in preserving, through a regional dialect, a lower-class perspective full of humour, prejudice and curiosity: faced with a foreign city, the narrator is both amazed and mocking, and the language itself has more flavour than the itinerary. For readers studying English dialect literature, local print culture and popular travel writing, it is a light but distinctive sample; for readers wanting to understand nineteenth-century Parisian city life, it can serve only as circumstantial evidence, not as a systematic description. It should be read as a dialect narrative: first get used to the spelling and vocabulary, then appreciate the town-and-country contrast and the self-mocking humour.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers studying English dialect literature and local print culture
Those interested in nineteenth-century popular travel writing and cross-cultural impressions
English-language readers who enjoy light humour and are willing to adapt to dialect spelling

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking systematic Paris travel information or urban-history data
Those unfamiliar with English dialect spelling who want a standard-English text

Reading tips

Read a few pages first to get used to the spelling patterns of the Yorkshire dialect, then read through continuously to avoid constant dictionary look-ups breaking the flow.
Classify the narrator's comments on Paris into "amazement, mockery, misunderstanding" to observe how the dialect creates humour.
Use it alongside a Yorkshire dialect dictionary or annotated edition, focusing on understanding recurring colloquial words.

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 a Paris travel guide?

No. It is a Yorkshire dialect poet's personal account of a trip to Paris, focusing on impressions, humour and local voice; it does not provide systematic routes, transport or accommodation information and cannot be used as a practical guide.

What if the Yorkshire dialect is hard to read?

The dialect spelling will slow you down; read several pages continuously first to build a feel for the language, look up only recurring key words, and do not compare every word with standard English. If the edition has notes, use them first to understand the jokes.

Is it suitable for studying nineteenth-century Paris urban history?

It can serve as supplementary material but not as a main source. It presents the limited perspective of an English provincial visitor and reflects more the traveller's prejudices and curiosity than the city as a whole.

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About the author

John Hartley Author · English · 1839–1915

John Hartley (1839–1915) was a British poet born in Halifax, West Riding of Yorkshire, and died in Wallasey. He wrote mainly poetry and prose in the Yorkshire dialect. His works have a sentimental tone and often reflect the poverty of local people. From 1866 he edited The Illuminating Clock Almanac. His representative works include Yorkshire Ditties, Yorkshire Tales, and Yorksher Puddin', as well as two series of Yorkshire Ditties and Seets i' Paris; six of his works are held in this collection. Public information is limited, but these works show that he drew on dialect to write about local experience and that he holds a place in the regional literary tradition.