The Delectable Mountains

Colton, Arthur, 1868-1943Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.4

Word count: 238K words
Chapters: 24

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 Delectable Mountains by Arthur ColtonAuthor: Colton, Arthur, 1868-1943,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Oct 21, 2015

Editor's review

The Delectable Mountains also comes from Project Gutenberg's public-domain library and is a work by Arthur Colton, classified under American and Canadian literature. The title carries a clearly literary image and readily evokes motifs of journey, distant prospect, and an ideal land. As an early American novel, its value lies more in its language, narrative interest, and record of period atmosphere than in modern-style tight plotting. The free electronic edition lets readers browse it at low cost as a literary specimen and observe how American fiction of the early twentieth century handles scene and character. It is best approached as an exploratory read: do not rush; begin with the opening to sense the style, then decide whether to read closely or casually. For literary-history enthusiasts it is a small piece of the puzzle; for general readers, a quiet, slightly nostalgic walk through words.

Who it's for

A good fit for

English readers who enjoy literary imagery and a nostalgic style
Lovers of public-domain American fiction who want free access
Browsing readers interested in fragments of American literary history
Those willing to read slowly and savor language rather than chase plot

Not a good fit for

Beginners who need a Chinese translation or bilingual annotations
Readers expecting clear genre pleasures such as suspense or romance
Researchers requiring an authoritative critical edition with detailed annotations

Reading tips

Read the opening chapter to sense the style and narrative perspective, then decide your reading pace.
Use the image in the title as a reading thread and note how landscape and characters' moods echo each other.
For the English original, read in sections and use a dictionary for unfamiliar words to avoid giving up midway.
After reading, briefly note characters and scenes to help sort out the looser narrative structure of early fiction

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 suitable for English beginners?

Not very. It is an English original and an early American literary text, with period features in vocabulary and syntax, and it has no Chinese annotations or translation to assist. English beginners will find it hard going; it is better to build some vocabulary first or choose an annotated edition.

What does Delectable Mountains in the title mean?

In the English literary tradition this image is often associated with distant prospect and a longed-for place, but its specific use in this book must be understood by readers from the text itself. The source provides no plot details, so it is best not to presuppose a theme but to observe from the opening how the author develops the image.

Does this edition have an introduction or annotations?

According to the source, it is a public-domain eBook released by Project Gutenberg, which usually provides only the text without a modern scholarly introduction or detailed annotations. Readers who need background should consult literary-history sources or studies of the author themselves.

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About the author

Colton, Arthur, 1868-1943 Author

Arthur Colton (1868-1943) was an American writer whose biographical details are limited in publicly available sources; he is known to readers mainly through his novels and essays. Eight of his works are held in the collection, spanning novels, short-story collections and essay collections, with subjects often involving seafaring, foreign journeys and imagined places. Representative works include the novels Port Argent and The Debatable Land, and the story collections The Delectable Mountains and Tioba, and Other Tales; The Cruise of The Violetta and The Belted Seas reveal his interest in life at sea. There is also Harps Hung up in Babylon and an index to his works. His writing emphasizes narrative and atmosphere in an elegant prose, moving between the everyday and the adventurous, and will appeal to readers of traditional English fiction.