Serapis — Volume 06

Georg Moritz EbersProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.6

Word count: 110K words
Chapters: 12

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.Serapis — Volume 06 by Georg EbersAuthor: Ebers, Georg, 1837-1898,Language: English, Class: PT: Language and Literatures: Germanic, Scandinavian, and Icelandic literatures, Release Date: Apr 1, 2004

Editor's review

Serapis — Volume 06 is the sixth volume of the long historical novel Serapis by the German Egyptologist and novelist Georg Ebers, released as an English electronic edition by Project Gutenberg. Ebers studied ancient Egypt for many years, and his novels often take Alexandria under the Roman Empire as their setting, weaving together religious conflict, social customs, and the fates of characters. This volume continues the narrative thread of the preceding volumes and suits readers who have already read the earlier volumes and wish to follow the story to its conclusion. As a public-domain e-book, its value lies in being freely available, easy to search and excerpt, and convenient for studying how nineteenth-century German historical novels were translated and introduced to the English-speaking world. Readers are advised to place it in the context of the whole work rather than treat it as a standalone short story, and to note the depictions of the tension between late antique polytheism and emerging religions and of the details of city life. One caveat: this volume is limited in length, and reading it alone can create a sense of broken plot; it is best read continuously with the preceding volumes.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in the history and religion of Alexandria in the Roman period
Readers systematically reading Ebers's historical novels who need to fill in a missing volume
Scholars studying the English translation and dissemination of nineteenth-century German historical novels
Deep readers accustomed to reading public-domain e-books and taking notes and excerpts

Not a good fit for

Casual readers hoping to start directly from a single volume without reading the earlier ones
Readers who prefer contemporary fast-paced narrative and lack patience for long historical exposition
Users who need a Chinese translation or an academic edition with detailed annotations

Reading tips

First confirm that you have finished the first five volumes, then read this volume in order to avoid breaks in the plot.
Keep notes on character relationships and religious factions as you read, for easy review and sorting.
Read alongside historical and geographical material on ancient Alexandria to enhance the sense of scene.

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

Can this book be read on its own?

Not recommended. This volume is the sixth part of the long novel Serapis, and both characters and plot carry over from the preceding text; reading it alone easily leaves one without context and makes the origins of the conflicts hard to understand. If you only want an outline of the story, read the earlier volumes first or look up an overall introduction to the work.

What language is the electronic edition in, and does it have annotations?

According to Project Gutenberg information, this edition is an English e-book and a public-domain text, usually without modern scholarly annotations or an introduction. If background knowledge is needed while reading, consult separate material on the religious history of the late Roman Empire and Egypt.

What is the background of the author Ebers?

Georg Ebers (1837–1898) was a German Egyptologist and novelist who worked for many years on ancient Egypt and brought his scholarly interests into his historical fiction. His works mostly draw on ancient Egypt and the Greco-Roman period, and this series is set in Alexandria.

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About the author

Georg Moritz Ebers Author · German · 1837–1898

Georg Ebers (1837–1898) was a German Egyptologist and novelist. Born in Berlin in 1837, he served as a professor at the University of Leipzig. His major contribution to Egyptology was the discovery, editing, and publication of the famous Ebers Papyrus, which provided valuable material for the study of ancient medical texts. At the same time, he devoted himself to spreading Egyptological knowledge through literature, writing historical novels such as An Egyptian Princess and Uarda. These works weave the social life and historical settings of ancient Egypt into their narratives, making specialized scholarship more accessible to general readers. His works number 172 in the library's collection, including the serialized volumes of An Egyptian Princess and Cleopatra, which shows how widely his historical novels circulated. Overall, Ebers combined scholarly rigor with a novelist's gift for popular expression, occupying a distinctive place in the popularization of Egyptology in the nineteenth century.