The Half-Back: A Story of School, Football, and Golf

Barbour, Ralph Henry, 1870-1944Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
350K words
Chapters
36

Tags

English Originals Sports Athletic CompetitionTeamworkCampus LifeAmerican FootballFriendship and RivalryInspirationComing of AgeYouthful VibeStudent Reading

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 Half-Back: A Story of School, Football, and Golf by Ralph Henry BarbourAuthor: Barbour, Ralph Henry, 1870-1944,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Feb 1, 2004

Editor's review

This is a school sports novel by Ralph Henry Barbour, released free in English by Project Gutenberg and classified under juvenile literature. The story revolves around school life, football, and golf, with its core appeal in the campus team atmosphere and adolescent growth rather than professional sports instruction. Barbour's works often use campus competition as a backdrop; this book serves as a light reading sample for understanding early twentieth-century Anglo-American school sports fiction. For English learners, the text is moderately difficult with clear plot lines, suitable for extensive reading practice; for sports fiction fans, it conveys the atmosphere of early campus football and golf. Readers should not expect profound war or social themes—treat it as a brisk school story.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the first few chapters to familiarize yourself with the characters and school setting, then follow the match clues.
  2. Record unfamiliar words by category—sports and campus life—and review them after finishing to support language learning.
  3. Read alongside other school sports novels by the same author to observe similarities and differences in narrative patterns.

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
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36

FAQ

Is this book suitable for learning English? According to the materials, it is an English juvenile school novel with clear plot lines, suitable for intermediate readers doing extensive reading. However, it involves early football and golf terminology; keep a dictionary handy and avoid checking every word.
Does the book teach football or golf techniques? The materials indicate it is a school story focused on characters and match experiences, not a technical manual. Readers wanting to learn sports techniques should choose dedicated instructional books; this book is better for experiencing campus competition atmosphere and adolescent growth.
Do I need to know the historical background before reading? This is an early twentieth-century school sports novel. Some knowledge of Anglo-American school sports culture at the time helps, but it is not necessary to follow the main plot. Start directly with the characters and match events, and fill in background as you read.

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About the author

Barbour, Ralph Henry, 1870-1944 Author

Ralph Henry Barbour (1870–1944) was an American writer of juvenile fiction. Public information about him is limited, and details of his life such as education and professional positions are difficult to verify, yet forty of his works are held in this collection, which attests to the volume of his output. His novels mostly take school life and sports as their subject matter, repeatedly depicting teenage athletic scenes such as football, track and field, and rowing; representative works include Full-Back Foster, Forward Pass, For Yardley, and Four Afloat. These stories move briskly and emphasize teamwork, fair play, and youthful growth, carrying the strong flavor of early twentieth-century American school fiction and enjoying popularity among young readers of the time. Barbour's style is plain and fluent, and he was skilled at portraying character through conflicts on and off the field, earning him a place in the popular genre of sports fiction; his works also offer lively material for understanding the school sports culture of that era.