The Eye of Istar: A Romance of the Land of No Return

Le Queux, William, 1864-1927Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.8
Word count
654K words
Chapters
66

Tags

English Originals Suspense ThrillerAdventure JourneyTreasure HuntEastern AdventureExotic CultureMysterious Legends

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 Eye of Istar: A Romance of the Land of No Return by William Le QueuxAuthor: Le Queux, William, 1864-1927,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Oct 9, 2012

Editor's review

William Le Queux's The Eye of Istar is an adventure romance with an Orientalist imagination, belonging to the exotic romance genre common in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British popular fiction. As a public-domain eBook from Project Gutenberg, it is easy and inexpensive to access, and is suitable for readers interested in early English adventure fiction or colonial-era exotic narratives. The work unfolds a romantic adventure set in the "Land of No Return"; its plot is strong and highly readable, but its narrative style and characterisation bear clear marks of their era, and today's readers would do well to approach it through the lens of literary history and genre reading. The electronic edition has no modern annotations; readers are advised to consult the English literature classification information and treat the book as a sample for understanding Le Queux's creative profile and the popular fiction tradition, rather than as a serious historical or regional reference.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the preface or opening chapters first to confirm the exotic adventure tone before deciding to read it through.
  2. When encountering unfamiliar place names and ethnic names, understand them only as background, not as historical fact.
  3. Compare with other works by Le Queux to observe his popular narrative formulas.
  4. If English reading is difficult, use the eBook's search function to review character relationships.

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
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FAQ

Is this book in Chinese or English? This is an English public-domain eBook released by Project Gutenberg; the text is in English and belongs to the English literature classification. Chinese readers need some English reading ability or reading tools for assistance.
Is it suitable as a book for historical or regional knowledge? Not really. This book is an adventure romance; its exotic setting mainly serves plot and imagination rather than rigorous historical or geographical record, so readers should not treat it as a factual reference.
Why does the recommendation mention Project Gutenberg? Because the book is released free by Project Gutenberg as a public-domain eBook resource. Understanding this source helps readers recognise its textual form, edition characteristics, and free access.

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

Le Queux, William, 1864-1927 Author

William Le Queux (1864–1927) was a British writer of popular fiction, with 74 of his works held in this collection. He is best known for invasion-scare and spy-adventure stories; The Invasion of 1910, which depicts a German invasion of Britain and the siege of London, drew considerable attention in its day, and The Great War in England in 1897 belongs to the same vein. His other works centre on mystery, intrigue and international espionage, such as The Zeppelin Destroyer, The Secrets of Potsdam, The Closed Book: Concerning the Secret of the Borgias and The Golden Face: A Great ‘Crook’ Romance, all marked by tight plotting and dense suspense. Le Queux often set fictional crises against real places to create a sense of urgency, and his work had some influence on the development of early spy fiction and thrillers. Public information is limited, so biographical details are not elaborated here.