The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV — Great

Project GutenbergProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
388K words
Chapters
39

Tags

English Originals World Classics Literary GiantsHumanistic CareLife PhilosophyIntellectual EnlightenmentSlow ReadingWestern ThoughtMoral CultivationBeautiful EssaysTraditional AestheticsEclectic Reading

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. The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Author: , Language: English, Class: PN: Language and Literatures: Literature: General, Criticism, Collections, Release Date: Jun 8, 2007

Editor's review

This is Volume IV of the ten-volume The Best of the World's Classics, devoted to prose and forming part of the early Project Gutenberg free eBook collection of English literary selections. For Chinese readers its value lies mainly in offering a window onto classic English-language prose: the anthology gathers famous authors and notable pieces so that readers can sample a range of styles and subjects within a single volume. Some grounding in English is needed, and notes or a parallel translation will help readers appreciate the texture of the selected texts. It works better as a book to dip into and read in fragments than as a monograph to be read straight through. As a public-domain eBook, its typesetting and annotation may be plain, with the reading experience resting on the text itself. It suits literature lovers, English learners, and readers curious about the Western prose tradition, to be browsed in spare moments on a commute or before bed, with deeper background checking reserved for pieces that particularly appeal.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Begin by browsing the table of contents and choose pieces of interest for close reading; there is no need to read the whole book in order.
  2. Keep an English-Chinese dictionary or a parallel translation at hand; with long sentences, sort out the structure first, then take in the meaning.
  3. After each piece, write a two- or three-sentence summary recording the style and the passages that left the strongest impression.

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

FAQ

What level of English is needed to read this book? Most selections are classic English prose, with fairly formal syntax and vocabulary. A reading level of CET-4 or above is recommended, or use a dictionary and translation as support, to understand the meaning smoothly and appreciate the style.
Is this fiction or prose? Is it suited to reading from start to finish? This is a prose anthology, not fiction. The pieces are relatively independent and better suited to selective, fragmentary reading by interest; reading straight through may feel loose because the styles vary widely, so browsing and close reading are recommended.
What should I keep in mind reading the electronic edition compared with a paper book? Public-domain eBooks usually have plain typesetting and limited notes or introduction, so it is best to supplement background material yourself; adjust font size and line spacing in your reader and use bookmarks to mark pieces you want to revisit.

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

Project Gutenberg Author

Project Gutenberg is not a single author but a nonprofit digital library founded by Michael Hart in 1971 and one of the world's earliest free ebook platforms. It relies on volunteers to digitize, proofread, and freely distribute public-domain works and is now operated by the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Its collection contains 2,692 works, mainly religious texts, epics, and story collections, including the King James Bible and the Douay-Rheims volumes, the epic Mahabharata, a literal translation of the Arabian Nights, and Danish editions of the Old and New Testaments. Public information is limited, and its nature is closer to a public-interest compiling and dissemination body; these texts are open to the public, easy to consult and circulate, and have had a profound influence on the spread of ebooks and the preservation of public-domain resources.