Sisters

Ada CambridgeProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 504K words
Chapters: 51

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.Sisters by Ada CambridgeAuthor: Cambridge, Ada, 1844-1926,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Jul 1, 2003

Editor's review

Sisters is a novel by Australian author Ada Cambridge, part of her body of work set against the backdrop of colonial society. The book revolves around family and relationships between women, written with delicate strokes and a focus on her characters' situations amid everyday ethical and emotional entanglements, bearing the hallmarks of late nineteenth- to early twentieth-century English fiction's attention to psychology and social mores. Cambridge's narrative pace is unhurried, and she excels at revealing her characters' value judgments through the details of daily life and dialogue; readers can see the pull women feel between marriage, family, and their own choices. As a public-domain electronic text, it is better suited as a sample for understanding women's writing in colonial Australia than as a book that pursues dramatic conflict. While reading, note the narrator's subtle shifts in attitude toward the characters, and how domestic space carries social norms. It is suitable for readers interested in women's growth and family themes in English literature to savor slowly.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Researchers interested in Australian colonial literature
Readers who enjoy women's family themes and delicate psychological portrayal
Literature students studying the customs of late nineteenth-century English fiction
Readers hoping to broaden their reading of English public-domain novels

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking strong dramatic conflict and suspenseful plots
Readers with little patience for slow-paced family narratives

Reading tips

It will go more smoothly to first understand the social background of colonial Australia before entering the characters' relationships.
Pay attention to how the narrator handles dialogue between the sisters and family scenes.
Read it alongside other English novels about women and family to observe differences in subject matter.
While reading, note the shifts in the characters' attitudes toward marriage and their own choices.

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

What kind of writer is Ada Cambridge?

She was an Australian writer of the late nineteenth to early twentieth century whose works were mostly drawn from colonial society and family life, focusing on women's situations and moral issues. Her style leans toward realism and psychological portrayal, with an unhurried pace, and is suited to readers interested in the customs of English fiction of that period.

Is this book suitable for English beginners?

Not very. The language carries period features, and the sentence structures and vocabulary pose a certain threshold for beginners, while the plot moves slowly. Readers with some experience of English fiction are advised to try it, possibly with annotations or a translation to aid understanding of the family relationships and social background.

Do I need to know Australian history before reading this book?

Not strictly, but it helps. Understanding the social structure, family values, and women's roles of the colonial period will give you a better sense of the context of the characters' choices. If you only want to read about the relationships, you can go straight into the text and fill in the background later.

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About the author

Ada Cambridge Author · Australian · 1844–1926

Ada Cambridge (1844–1926) was an English-born Australian woman writer, born in 1844 at St Germans in Norfolk, England. In 1870 she moved with her clergyman husband to Victoria, Australia, where she long supplemented the family income by writing serialized novels. Over her lifetime she produced 21 novels, three poetry collections and two memoirs, with representative works including The Three Miss Kings, A Mere Chance and Thirty Years in Australia. Her works often draw on everyday life and family relationships in colonial Australia, with delicate, attentive writing that emphasizes character psychology and emotion, giving her a place in early Australian women's writing. She died in Melbourne in 1926.