The Black Patch

Fergus Hume (Fergusson Wright Hume)Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 449K words
Chapters: 45

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 Black Patch by Fergus HumeAuthor: Hume, Fergus, 1859-1932,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Aug 8, 2017

Editor's review

The Black Patch is an English novel by Fergus Hume, presented here as a free eBook by Project Gutenberg. Hume was a popular fiction writer of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries whose work often carries elements of mystery and melodrama. As a public-domain electronic text, its chief value lies in offering primary material to those studying late Victorian popular fiction, the evolution of the detective and mystery genre, or English-language reading. The electronic edition is easy to search and suited to textual analysis, making it a useful supplementary text for courses on genre fiction, or for readers comfortable with English who wish to read in segments during commutes and journeys. Note that the Gutenberg edition is a digitized version of the original text without modern editorial work, with limited formatting and annotation, so readers should bring their own background knowledge. It is not an introductory guide for beginners, but is better suited to readers with experience of English fiction and an interest in early mystery narrative who are willing to explore on their own.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy mystery and detective fiction in the original English
University students studying late Victorian popular fiction
Researchers needing public-domain English texts for corpus analysis
Readers who prefer e-reading and free access to classic texts

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking a Chinese translation or bilingual edition
English beginners needing detailed annotations and introductions
General readers who prefer fast-paced modern mystery narratives

Reading tips

Read a chapter or two first to check whether the language difficulty and narrative pace suit you.
Jot down character relationships and clues as you read to keep track of the mystery.
Consult background material on Victorian British society to understand the setting.
Use the e-book's search function to locate keywords for thematic or character analysis.

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

Is this book in Chinese or English?

This is an English-language e-book published by Project Gutenberg, with the text in English and no Chinese translation. It suits readers with some English reading ability, or those who need the original English text for research or corpus analysis.

What are the features of the Gutenberg edition?

The Gutenberg edition is a digitized text of a public-domain work, free to access and easy to search, but it usually lacks modern editorial annotations, introductions, or carefully proofread formatting. Readers need to bring their own background knowledge and look up unfamiliar expressions themselves.

Can I read it without experience of mystery fiction?

You can try, but it is advisable to read the first few chapters to judge whether the language and pace suit you. Early mystery fiction differs considerably in narrative style from modern works; if it feels difficult, reading a similar work edited for modern readers first can serve as a bridge.

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About the author

Fergus Hume (Fergusson Wright Hume) Author · English · 1859–1932

Fergus Hume (1859–1932) was a British novelist. Born in England, he moved with his family to New Zealand as a child, studied at the University of Otago and qualified as a lawyer. In 1885 he went to Melbourne, and the following year he published The Mystery of a Hansom Cab at his own expense, achieving instant fame; the book is regarded as a bestselling classic in the history of detective fiction. In 1888 Hume returned to England to settle, and thereafter devoted himself to detective and suspense fiction, producing more than a hundred works in his lifetime, of which 66 are held in this collection, including The Silent House, The Gentleman Who Vanished and The Spider. He died in Essex in 1932.