The Hand-Made Gentleman: A Tale of the Battles of Peace

Bacheller, Irving, 1859-1950Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.9
Word count
348K words
Chapters
35

Tags

English Originals Social Fiction Commercial EthicsStruggle and StrivingHuman NatureInspirationIdeals and RealityBecoming a GentlemanSelf-GrowthHeartwarming NarrativePopular FictionPopular Narrative

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 Hand-Made Gentleman: A Tale of the Battles of Peace by Irving BachellerAuthor: Bacheller, Irving, 1859-1950,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Sep 18, 2015

Editor's review

The Hand-Made Gentleman is a novel by Irving Bacheller, subtitled A Tale of the Battles of Peace, and falls under American and Canadian literature. The title's "hand-made gentleman" suggests that character is shaped like a crafted object, requiring discipline and patience, while "battles of peace" points to the intense but bloodless struggles of daily life and the inner world. Bacheller's narrative style is gentle and humane, skilled at unfolding his characters' growth and choices through everyday scenes. For readers familiar with American popular literature of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this book offers a reading experience warmed by its era; for those studying the figure of the gentleman and the theme of moral formation in American fiction, it provides a useful reference text. As a free Project Gutenberg ebook, it suits casual reading in spare moments such as commutes or before bed, and works well as extensive reading material in English literature. Note that this is the original English text, whose language bears the marks of its time and whose plot moves at a leisurely pace; readers should come to savor it rather than chase the plot.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the subtitle and chapter titles first to grasp the "battles of peace" thread before entering the main text.
  2. Read one or two chapters a day; mark unfamiliar period expressions and revisit them after finishing the chapter.
  3. Pair the reading with brief background material on late nineteenth-century American society to better understand the characters' circumstances.
  4. After finishing, note the "battles of peace" in which the protagonist makes key choices, and write up reading notes.

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

FAQ

Is this book the original English text? How difficult is the language? This is the original English text, bearing the marks of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with fairly long sentences and somewhat formal diction. Intermediate to advanced readers can get through it fairly smoothly; beginners may struggle with period expressions and long sentences, so it is advisable to sample the opening pages first before deciding.
What do the "battles of peace" refer to? "Battles of peace" is the key phrase in the subtitle, pointing to the bloodless yet equally fierce struggles of daily life, such as the tempering of character, moral choices, and the friction of human relationships. The title "hand-made gentleman" echoes this, stressing that character must be polished over years like a handicraft rather than arriving fully formed.
Is this book suitable as English learning material? It can serve as extensive reading material for intermediate to advanced learners. It is a free public-domain ebook, easy to obtain, and its narrative centers on everyday scenes, which makes it easy to keep reading. But its language bears period features and is not suitable as a beginner's textbook; use it alongside a dictionary and background material, focusing on literary expressions rather than exam vocabulary.
What are the features of this edition? This edition is released by Project Gutenberg as a free ebook and classified under American and Canadian literature. It provides the electronic text of the work itself, convenient to read on a computer, phone, or e-reader, but it does not include the introductions, annotations, or critical appendices common in modern editions; readers must supply background material themselves.

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About the author

Bacheller, Irving, 1859-1950 Author

Irving Bacheller (1859–1950) was an American writer. Public information about his life and education is limited, but the library holds eighteen of his works, which shows the breadth of his subjects. He is known for his North Country novels, above all Eben Holden, a tale of rural life told in a plain and warmly human style; The Light in the Clearing continues this regional setting against the times of Silas. Bacheller also wrote historical fiction: Vergilius: A Tale of the Coming of Christ and In the Days of Poor Richard draw on the classical world and the colonial period, while A Man for the Ages portrays figures from American history. Books such as The Master of Silence and 'Charge It': Keeping Up with Harry show a gentle, popular narrative manner, often with moral concern and a local flavor. His works reached a broad readership and hold a place in early twentieth-century American popular literature, and some were adapted for stage and screen.