The Hermits

Kingsley, Charles, 1819-1875Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.3

Word count: 509K words
Chapters: 51

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 Hermits by Charles KingsleyAuthor: Kingsley, Charles, 1819-1875,Language: English, Class: BX: Philosophy, Psychology, Religion: Christianity: Churches, Church movements, Release Date: Aug 1, 2005

Editor's review

Charles Kingsley's The Hermits is a short book, yet it sets out the tradition of solitary religious life in Christian history with clarity and warmth. The author is not content to list figures; he places the eremitic phenomenon back into the faith atmosphere and social environment of each era, covering the desert monks of the patristic age as well as later forms of retreat, and the reader feels a restrained respect and cautious judgment throughout. As a public-domain ebook, it preserves the rhythm and tone of Victorian English prose, with long sentences and dense religious vocabulary, posing a certain threshold for readers unfamiliar with Christian background. Precisely for this reason, it serves as an accessible primary popular account of monasticism and Western religious ideas, especially suited to slow reading in quiet hours, with notes and background searches, yielding within its brief span a historical understanding of the ancient impulse to withdraw rather than a curious browse.

Who it's for

A good fit for

General readers interested in Christian monastic tradition and religious history
Readers of literature and history seeking the origins of the Western idea of retreat
Readers accustomed to public-domain English ebooks and tolerant of long sentences
Theology or religious studies students using it as supplementary introductory reading

Not a good fit for

Readers hoping for a plot-driven biographical narrative
Beginners with little English reading experience or unfamiliarity with religious terminology
Researchers expecting systematic scholarly apparatus and detailed annotation

Reading tips

Read the table of contents and introduction first to grasp the chronological thread before entering the main text.
Look up patristic names and sectarian terms as they arise; do not insist on understanding everything at once.
Read one short section a day and take notes on changes in forms of eremitic life.
After finishing, revisit the opening to test how your understanding of eremitism has changed.

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 a novel or a historical discussion?

The materials indicate it is Kingsley's work on the theme of hermits, a discursive work in the category of religion and church history rather than a fictional novel. It should be read as a survey of history and religious ideas, not a collection of character stories; consult the original table of contents for specific genre details.

Can I read it without background knowledge of Christianity?

You can, but you will need to fill in background as you go. The book touches on concepts such as the Church Fathers, monastic institutions, and church movements; it is advisable first to grasp the general outline of early Christian development, then look up names and terms, which will make reading much smoother. Complete unfamiliarity may make it heavy going.

What should I note when reading the electronic edition?

This is a public-domain ebook, mainly in plain text, and may lack notes and illustrations. Use reading software that supports dictionary lookup and annotation, break long sentences into parts, and compile your own glossary of names and terms to make up for the limited supplementary information in the electronic edition.

Comments

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About the author

Kingsley, Charles, 1819-1875 Author

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) was a British author, though specific details of his life are limited in publicly available sources. The library holds 48 of his works, commonly classified under inspirational growth. His representative works include Hypatia — or New Foes with an Old Face, The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby, Westward Ho!, The Heroes Or, Greek Fairy Tales for My Children, and Yeast: a Problem. These works cover a wide range of subjects, including historical novels set in late antiquity, fairy tales and Greek myths written for children, and novels concerned with social issues. Kingsley's writing often combines narrative, imagination, and moral instruction, with vivid language that conveys themes of growth, responsibility, and belief, and has had some influence on later children's literature and historical fiction.