Sir Rowland Hill: The Story of a Great Reform

Smyth, Eleanor C. Hill, 1831-1926Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.2
Word count
574K words
Chapters
58

Tags

English Originals General Biography Public ServiceInstitutional InnovationInstitutional ReformPostal ReformReform PioneerCivic AwarenessInspirationPatriotism19th CenturySocial Observation

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.Sir Rowland Hill: The Story of a Great Reform by Eleanor C. Hill SmythAuthor: Smyth, Eleanor C. Hill, 1831-1926,Language: English, Class: HE: Social sciences: Transportation and communications, Release Date: Aug 31, 2017

Editor's review

Sir Rowland Hill: The Story of a Great Reform is by Eleanor C. Hill Smyth (1831–1926), released by Project Gutenberg as a free eBook and classified under social sciences: transportation and communications (HE). From the title and classification, this is a narrative work about Rowland Hill and "a great reform," falling at the intersection of communications history and reform history. Its reading value lies not in literary quality but in telling an institutional change as a coherent story: readers can learn how a 19th-century communications reform was proposed, promoted, and made its impact, and can also see the author's narrative perspective as a contemporary. Since the materials provide no specific reform content or chapter structure, readers should treat it as a historical narrative rather than a modern academic monograph, and distinguish the author's stance from historical background. In terms of reading scenarios, it suits readers interested in postal history, communications history, and institutional change for segmented reading on electronic devices, with a timeline to organize figures and events; it also works as English nonfiction extensive reading material, building historical and institutional vocabulary.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read the table of contents and opening first to outline the reform's core proposals and key figures, then move into details.
  2. Build a timeline as you read, arranging figures, events, and institutional changes in order.
  3. Mark historical proper nouns first and look them up after finishing a chapter, to avoid interrupting the pace.
  4. Read alongside general communications history materials to help distinguish the author's narrative from historical background.

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
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58

FAQ

Is this book about Rowland Hill's life or about the reform? From the title, the work centers on Rowland Hill and "the story of a great reform," making it a reform narrative rather than a pure biography. The materials provide no chapter details, so check the table of contents and opening to confirm the narrative focus.
What is the author's relationship to Rowland Hill? The materials only show the author as Eleanor C. Hill Smyth (1831–1926), whose name includes Hill, but do not state her specific relationship to Rowland Hill. Readers should not infer kinship from this; rely on the narrative within the text.
Is this book suitable as an introduction to historical research? It can serve as introductory material for understanding 19th-century communications reform narratives, but it is an early narrative work that usually lacks modern scholarly annotations and references. For research, pair it with modern communications history works and primary sources.
How difficult is the English, and what background is needed? The book is an English historical narrative involving institutional and communications vocabulary; intermediate or higher English reading ability is recommended. Try the opening first; if unfamiliar words are too dense, build communications history background before reading.

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

Smyth, Eleanor C. Hill, 1831-1926 Author

Eleanor C. Hill Smyth (1831–1926) is the author of Sir Rowland Hill: The Story of a Great Reform. Public information about her life is very limited, and her nationality, occupation, and educational background cannot be reliably established; the library holds only one work by her. Judging from the surviving bibliographic information, her writing centers on Rowland Hill, the pioneer of British postal reform, and belongs to a genre that combines biography with the history of reform. Works of this kind usually take a person's life as their thread, describing the social background of institutional change and the process by which it was advanced, and they are characterized by both the arrangement of historical sources and accessible narration. Her book offers a useful text for later readers seeking to understand Rowland Hill and his postal reforms, and it reflects the tendency in nineteenth-century British writing on reform history to emphasize the interaction between individuals and institutions.