The Frontiersmen

Murfree, Mary Noailles, 1850-1922Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.2

Word count: 387K words
Chapters: 39

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 Frontiersmen by Mary Noailles MurfreeAuthor: Murfree, Mary Noailles, 1850-1922,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Oct 12, 2004

Editor's review

Mary Noailles Murfree's The Frontiersmen continues her local-color writing set in the Tennessee mountains, using dialect-inflected dialogue and dense landscape description to render the rough texture of frontier life and the clashes of custom among its characters. The work's value lies not in intricate plotting but in preserving the voice of a vanishing mountain life: accents, proverbs, ways of labor, and community rules are all carefully woven into the narrative. Readers who can accept a slow pace and abundant regional description will feel the author's observation of frontier people, at once intimate and circumspect. It serves as a sample of American local-color literature, best read alongside contemporaneous regional writing to understand how late-nineteenth-century American literature constructed a "native" imagination through regional difference. Note that the portrayal of mountain residents carries the perspectives of its era; readers may keep a critical distance and not treat it as objective social record.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers studying American local-color literature and Southern mountain writing
Those interested in late-nineteenth-century American rural society and dialect narrative
Readers of English fiction who can accept a slow pace, heavy atmosphere, and regional description
Students and enthusiasts seeking to understand the regional tradition in American literature

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer fast-paced plots and strong dramatic conflict
Readers impatient with heavy dialect spelling and archaic usage
Readers seeking systematic frontier history or sociological research materials

Reading tips

Learn a little about the Tennessee mountains and local-color literature first; the text is easier to grasp
When encountering dialect spelling, sound it out by pronunciation rather than verifying word by word, to keep reading fluid
Treat landscape and custom description as part of the main line, noting character relationships and community rules as you read
After reading, compare with contemporaneous regional fiction to see how different authors handle regional material

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

Who are the "frontiersmen" in the title?

They refer to the community of residents living in remote mountain areas in the story, portrayed through their daily interactions, clashes of custom, and ways of speaking. The characters are not a group drawn from historical archives but a literary presentation; readers should regard them as a character ensemble in local-color writing rather than a strict sociological category.

What if I can't understand the dialect dialogue?

You need not reconstruct every word precisely. Sound out the approximate pronunciation from the spelling, grasp the tone and attitude, and judge meaning from context. If it hinders understanding, choose an annotated edition, or read through the plot first and return to dialect passages later, so a few words don't make you abandon a whole chapter.

Is this book suitable as historical material?

Not as rigorous historical source material. It offers a literary frontier imagination and the perspectives of its era; its descriptions of customs, accents, and scenes of life have reference value, but characters and plot are artistically shaped. For historical research, use it alongside local histories and scholarly works, and remain critical of the value judgments in the book.

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About the author

Murfree, Mary Noailles, 1850-1922 Author

Mary Noailles Murfree (1850-1922) was an American writer of local color literature, best known for her novels and short stories set in the mountain regions of Tennessee. Her works often portray the customs and people of the Great Smoky Mountains, blending realistic observation with a legendary tone. Her representative works include The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains, The Ordeal: A Mountain Romance of Tennessee, The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain, and Other Stories, and The Phantoms of the Foot-Bridge, and Other Stories. Twenty-six of her works are included in this collection, commonly classified under inspirational growth, with many stories focusing on mountain youths coming of age and showing resilience in hardship. Public information about the details of her life is limited, so no speculation is offered here.