The City That Was: A Requiem of Old San Francisco

Irwin, Will, 1873-1948Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.8
Word count
35K words
Chapters
4

Tags

English Originals World History Historical ReappraisalEarthquake DisasterHumanistic CareUrban ElegyNostalgiaDocumentary NarrativeSocial 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.The City That Was: A Requiem of Old San Francisco by Will IrwinAuthor: Irwin, Will, 1873-1948,Language: English, Class: F850.5: United States local history: Pacific States, Release Date: Jul 1, 2002

Editor's review

"The City That Was: A Requiem of Old San Francisco" is Will Irwin's elegy for the old San Francisco. Writing as a firsthand witness, the author recalls the neighborhoods, street life, and human atmosphere of the city before the great earthquake of 1906, in prose that combines a reporter's keen eye with an essayist's nostalgic warmth. Its value lies not in offering systematic local history but in preserving a vanishing urban memory, letting readers feel both the rupture and the continuity the city experienced around the disaster. The book is short and well suited as an introduction to urban history and disaster writing, and to reading alongside San Francisco-related novels and photography collections. Readers may wish to slow down, noting how the author uses concrete scenes to support the nostalgic mood and how he restrains sentiment within mourning. For readers interested in American western urban development, urban memory, and cultural heritage, this is a brief but weighty primary text.

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Reading tips

  1. Read the opening and closing first to grasp the elegiac tone, then return to the concrete scene descriptions in the middle.
  2. Mark the neighborhoods, buildings, and people the author mentions as you read, and consult old maps of San Francisco to deepen your sense of space.
  3. Read alongside historical sources or news accounts of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake to appreciate the difference between personal memory and public narrative.
  4. The original English text is limited in length; consider reading a short section each day and excerpting one sentence that best captures the nostalgic tone.

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

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a work of nonfiction? Judging from the title, the author's identity, and the classification, it is documentary urban reminiscence and elegiac essay rather than fiction. The author recalls the old San Francisco from a firsthand perspective, focusing on preserving urban memory and personal feeling rather than constructing a plot.
Do I need to know about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake before reading? No specialized knowledge is required beforehand, but knowing the background of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake makes it easier to understand the elegiac tone of "the city that was." Readers unfamiliar with the background can also read it as a nostalgic urban essay and look up the relevant history afterward.
How difficult is the English, and what level of reader is it suitable for? The materials do not specify a language difficulty level, but given the period and the style of an author who was both a journalist and essayist, it is early twentieth-century English prose, with potentially long sentences and period vocabulary. It suits readers with intermediate or higher English reading ability who are willing to look up words; beginners may use annotations or a translation for support.
Is this book long, and how should I plan my reading? The materials do not give a specific page count, but as an elegiac essay it is likely short. Reading it in two or three sessions is suggested: first read through to grasp the tone, then return to specific scenes, and finally excerpt key sentences and compare them with historical materials on San Francisco to form your own reading notes.

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About the author

Irwin, Will, 1873-1948 Author

Will Irwin (Irwin, Will, 1873–1948), born William Henry Irwin, was an American journalist and writer. Public information about him is limited, and many details of his life remain unknown, yet the five works held in this collection show the breadth of his writing. The City That Was: A Requiem of Old San Francisco recalls in elegiac prose the old city before the 1906 earthquake, combining a reporter's eye for fact with a literary nostalgia; The Readjustment and The Picaroons turn to social and character-driven subjects in a lighter, popular narrative manner; The House of Mystery unfolds suspense through an episode in the career of the clairvoyant Rosalie Le Grange; and Stanford Stories: Tales of a Young University draws on campus life with humor and warmth. His plain, fluent style excels at evoking an era through concrete scenes and characters, and his works were aimed at general readers.