The Cromptons

Holmes, Mary Jane, 1825-1907Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.8

Word count: 569K words
Chapters: 57

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 Cromptons by Mary Jane HolmesAuthor: Holmes, Mary Jane, 1825-1907,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jun 27, 2005

Editor's review

This novel comes from the pen of Mary Jane Holmes, a nineteenth-century American popular novelist, and belongs to the domestic and sentimental narrative tradition she excelled in. The work centers on the Crompton family, and through the ups and downs of daily life, the bonds of kinship, and the turns of fate, it presents ordinary people of that era pursuing respectability, affection, and belonging. Holmes's style is plain and gentle, with attention to delicate inner characterization; the plot advances not through intense conflict but through the layered unfolding of relationships. For readers studying nineteenth-century American women's writing, the popular fiction market, or domestic fiction, this book offers a useful textual sample; for general readers, it is more like a leisurely panorama of period life, suited to quiet, unhurried reading. Note that this is a public-domain English original whose language carries Victorian habits of expression and whose plot moves slowly, so readers should adjust their expectations. As a free ebook, the edition prioritizes textual readability and contains no modern annotations.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literary readers interested in nineteenth-century American popular fiction and domestic themes
Scholars and students studying the tradition of American women writers and public-domain literary resources
Advanced English learners who wish to build language intuition through slow reading of English originals
Readers who enjoy leisurely period stories with finely drawn relationships

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer strong plots, fast pacing, or suspenseful twists
Readers still at an elementary level of English who find nineteenth-century prose difficult
Deep researchers who need modern annotations, introductions, or scholarly editions

Reading tips

Read the opening chapters first to clarify the Crompton family relationships; a self-made character list can help
Read one or two chapters a day, marking unfamiliar expressions to look up later so as not to disrupt the reading rhythm
Read alongside background material on nineteenth-century American domestic fiction to better understand characters' motives
After finishing, revisit the key turning points and review how the author handles the themes of kinship and fate

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 is it the English original?

This is a public-domain English ebook released by Project Gutenberg; the text is in English with no Chinese translation. The language carries nineteenth-century American habits of expression, so readers with some foundation in English are advised to choose it.

Can I understand it without knowledge of nineteenth-century background?

You can follow the main plot, but some details involving the family values and social etiquette of the time may require background supplementation. Reading with a concise introduction to the period will make understanding smoother.

Is this book suitable for learning English?

It suits intermediate and advanced English learners as extensive reading material, offering exposure to nineteenth-century vocabulary and sentence patterns. But its style is distant from modern English, so beginners are not advised to use it as a first textbook.

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About the author

Holmes, Mary Jane, 1825-1907 Author

Mary Jane Holmes (1825–1907) was a popular nineteenth-century American novelist who found a wide readership in her day. Public information about her early life and education is limited, but her output was considerable: this site holds twenty-one of her works, which suggests how active she was in the book market and among readers of her time. Her representative novels include The English Orphans, ‘Lena Rivers, Bad Hugh, Family Pride, Cousin Maude, Maggie Miller, Gretchen, and Tempest and Sunshine. These stories are mostly drawn from domestic life and emotional entanglements, often turning on orphaned origins, family ties, pride and suffering, secrets and reconciliation. Their plots are eventful, their tone gentle, and their sensibility plainly sentimental and moralizing. Written for a broad popular audience and especially welcomed by women readers, her novels offer a useful window onto the character of nineteenth-century American popular fiction.