Sir Tom cover

Sir Tom

Rating 3.5
Word count
932K words
Chapters
94

Tags

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 Tom by Mrs. OliphantAuthor: Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret), 1828-1897,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Dec 17, 2009

Editor's review

Sir Tom is a work by the prolific Victorian novelist Margaret Oliphant, belonging to the domestic and country-gentry subject matter she excelled in. Oliphant often depicted, with delicate strokes, the human relations, property inheritance, and family ties of English provincial society; this book continues such concerns and is suitable for readers who wish to understand the strand of nineteenth-century English women's writing that is neither Austen nor Brontë. The Project Gutenberg edition is an English public-domain ebook, convenient for searching and reading on the go, but it has no modern introduction or notes, so readers must grasp the historical background themselves. It is best treated as a social novel of manners to be read slowly: note the class nuances in dialogue, the narrator's gentle irony toward gentry families, and the position of female characters within structures of marriage and property. Read alongside other works by Oliphant, it better reveals her repeated refinement of the same themes. Suitable for quiet desk reading or in segments during commutes; not for those seeking strong plot excitement.

Who it's for

A good fit for

  • Readers who love Victorian English fiction and want to broaden their view of women writers beyond Austen
  • Readers of social novels of manners interested in gentry families, inheritance, and marriage
  • Literature students studying nineteenth-century English women's writing and domestic narrative
  • English learners who need a public-domain English text for reading practice or textual searching

Not a good fit for

  • Contemporary genre-fiction readers who prefer fast pacing and strong conflict
  • Beginners who need modern notes, an introduction, or a Chinese translation
  • Readers entirely unfamiliar with Victorian social background who are unwilling to consult reference materials

Reading tips

  1. Read one chapter first, note the main characters and family relationships, then decide whether to read through, avoiding confusion from the large cast.
  2. Prepare brief background notes on nineteenth-century English gentry inheritance and marriage law to consult against the plot.
  3. After each section, summarize the narrator's attitude toward the characters in two or three sentences to appreciate the gentle irony.
  4. Read alongside other Oliphant domestic novels to observe the themes and character types she returns to.

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
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  3. 3
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  8. 8
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  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
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  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
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  60. 60
  61. 61
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  63. 63
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  70. 70
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  73. 73
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  93. 93
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FAQ

Is this book a Chinese translation?
No. This edition comes from Project Gutenberg; the text is an English public-domain ebook with no Chinese translation and no modern notes or introduction. Chinese readers need some English reading ability or should use reference books or a translation alongside.
Without an introduction or notes, will it be hard to read?
The language is nineteenth-century English fiction, with sentence patterns and vocabulary at some distance from modern English, and it involves gentry families and inheritance. Try one or two chapters first, with character-relationship notes and period background, and the difficulty will drop noticeably.
Is it suitable for reading on electronic devices?
Yes. The Project Gutenberg edition is a plain-text ebook, convenient for segmented reading and full-text search on phones, tablets, or e-readers. Adjust font size and line spacing, and use annotation features to record characters and clues.
Should I learn about the author Oliphant first?
No systematic study is needed, but knowing she excelled in domestic and gentry-life subjects and wrote prolifically helps grasp the book's narrative pace and focus. A few minutes checking her life and background before reading is enough; no need to go further.

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About the author

Margaret Oliphant Wilson Oliphant Author · British (Scottish) · 1828–1897

Mrs. Oliphant (Margaret Oliphant Wilson Oliphant, 1828–1897) was a prolific Scottish novelist, historical writer and biographer of the Victorian era. Born in Wallyford, she gained fame in 1849 with Passages in the Life of Mrs. Margaret Maitland. In 1852 she married her cousin Frank Oliphant; widowed in 1859, she supported her children by her pen and published more than a hundred works in her lifetime. The library holds 90 of her works, including the Carlingford Chronicles, Salem Chapel, Miss Marjoribanks, supernatural tales, Hester, Kirsteen and the autobiography The Days of My Life. She is known for her delicate, humorous portrayals of small-town life and for her historical and biographical writing, and stands as a representative professional woman writer of the Victorian period.

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