The Homicidal Diary

Peirce, EarlProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.4

Word count: 43K words
Chapters: 5

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 Homicidal Diary by Earl PeirceAuthor: Peirce, Earl,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Feb 8, 2010

Editor's review

The Homicidal Diary is a short public-domain work of fiction in Project Gutenberg's US and Canadian literature category. It is brief and carries the narrative feel of early pulp-magazine fiction. As the title suggests, the work uses a diary as its narrative vehicle and revolves around a murder; suspense and psychological tension are its main reading pleasures, and the first-person limited perspective created by the diary form keeps readers guessing at the truth amid asymmetrical information. Its value lies more in its significance as a stylistic specimen: readers can observe how early genre fiction achieves atmosphere and plot reversal in a concise format, and it can also serve as a concrete case study of diary-form narration in popular literature. Because it is a public-domain electronic text, it is easy to obtain and suitable for short reading sessions or as material for a thematic study of genre literature. A caveat: such early popular works bear the imprint of their era in characterization and expression of ideas, and readers should maintain a certain historical distance.

Who it's for

A good fit for

For readers who enjoy short suspense and crime fiction and want to finish a complete story in one sitting
For literature enthusiasts and students studying diary-form narrative or early popular-magazine fiction
For English learners who need public-domain English short stories as reading-practice material
For readers compiling themed genre-fiction selections who want to add an early short-story sample

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer long, complex plots and deep character development
Readers sensitive to crime content who do not want to encounter murder descriptions
Genre-fiction readers expecting the pacing and density of twists of modern psychological suspense
Readers who need a Chinese translation and are not used to reading English originals

Reading tips

Read it through in one go first, then go back over the diary entries to sort out the gaps between what the narrator knows and what he conceals.
Mark time clues and character relationships as you read; the jumps in diary form can easily cause confusion.
After finishing, compare it with other diary-form short stories of the same period to see how narrative perspective creates suspense.
If using it for English study, pick out sentences describing psychology and scenes for close reading and imitation writing.

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

What is this story roughly about?

The work unfolds in diary form and advances its narrative around a murder case; it is a short work of early popular fiction. The diary's limited perspective lets readers approach the events along with the narrator, and the suspense comes mainly from the gap between what the narrator sees and the truth.

Is it long? How long does it take to finish?

It is a short work of modest length, usually finishable in one or two sittings. It suits one-sitting reading on a commute or before bed, and is also convenient as short material for group discussion at a book club.

Is there a Chinese version of this e-book?

This entry is an English public-domain text collected by Project Gutenberg, and the materials do not show an accompanying Chinese translation. If you need to read in Chinese, you will have to find a translation separately, or read the English original with the help of tools.

Is it suitable as discussion material for a literature class?

It is suitable as a sample of short-form narrative, especially for discussing diary-form perspective, information control, and suspense setup. But because it is an early popular work, discussion should take its historical context into account and avoid judging it simply by the standards of contemporary genre fiction.

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

Peirce, Earl Author

Peirce, Earl is an English-language author about whom little public information is available. Two of his works are held in the collection: Doom of the House of Duryea and The Homicidal Diary. Judging from their titles, both are likely works of suspense, horror, or Gothic narrative: the former suggests a family mansion and a curse, while the latter links a diary to a murder. Because the available material gives no nationality, dates of birth and death, or writing background, it is impossible to know the full scope of his career or his precise place within genre literature. On the evidence of these titles alone, his work appears to favor enclosed settings, family secrets, and psychological tension, and may interest readers of older suspense fiction who wish to consult the original books.