The Frontier

Leblanc, Maurice, 1864-1941Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.8

Word count: 329K words
Chapters: 33

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 Frontier by Maurice LeblancAuthor: Leblanc, Maurice, 1864-1941,Language: English, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Apr 2, 2009

Editor's review

Leblanc is best known for the Arsène Lupin series; The Frontier turns to the Franco-German border in the years around World War I, with the suspense-building and identity puzzles typical of his work. Readers can see how a popular novelist handled the intertwining of war, nation, and individual destiny; the pacing is traditional narrative, making it a useful sample for understanding the boundaries of early twentieth-century French popular literature. The Project Gutenberg edition is a public-domain English ebook, suitable for readers studying the history of popular literature, French literary translation, or doing extensive reading in English. While reading, note how the border motif serves as a double metaphor for characters' psychology and political tension, and compare with the author's other works to observe continuities and changes in his narrative technique.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy classic suspense fiction and want to explore Leblanc's non-Lupin works
Enthusiasts studying early twentieth-century French popular literature and war narrative
English learners who want to practice extensive reading with public-domain English ebooks
Readers interested in the historical background of the Franco-German border and its literary imagination
Students and teachers who need public-domain texts for comparative literature or translation studies

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting Arsène Lupin-style gentleman-thief adventures
Readers who prefer fast-paced modern suspense or strong plot twists
Readers who need detailed historical research or scholarly annotated editions

Reading tips

Read the opening chapters first to grasp the border geography and character relationships, then move into the main plot
Prepare a simple map or marginal notes marking Franco-German border place names to reduce difficulty in understanding the spatial setting
Read alongside Leblanc's Lupin series to observe how his suspense techniques change in a serious subject
During extensive reading in English, summarize the plot in two or three sentences at the end of each chapter to check comprehension

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 part of the Arsène Lupin series?

No. The information shows this is Leblanc's The Frontier, with a subject involving the border and wartime background; it is not an adventure series featuring the gentleman thief Lupin, so readers should not approach it with the expectations of a Lupin story.

Can readers with weak English read this edition?

This is a public-domain English ebook from Project Gutenberg; the language is early twentieth-century popular-fiction English with fairly traditional sentence patterns. Intermediate and above readers can do extensive reading with a dictionary; beginners are advised to start with short stories or adapted versions.

What are the features of this edition?

This edition is released by Project Gutenberg as a free public-domain ebook, easy to download and search, but it usually does not include modern scholarly notes, introductions, or detailed historical background, so readers need to supplement relevant materials themselves.

Comments

Find this book

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

Leblanc, Maurice, 1864-1941 Author

Maurice Leblanc (1864–1941) was a French writer best known for creating the gentleman thief Arsène Lupin. Twenty-four of his works are held in this collection, including The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar, The Teeth of the Tiger, The Confessions of Arsène Lupin, The Crystal Stopper, The Blonde Lady, and Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes, the last of which is especially familiar to readers. His novels center on investigation, theft, and contests of wit, with intricate plots, brisk pacing, and frequent unexpected twists that blend crime fiction with adventure. Because public information is limited, his early life and full body of work cannot be described in detail; yet through the morally ambiguous figure of Lupin, he brought a distinctive charm to French popular detective fiction and left a lasting influence on later gentleman-thief stories.