The Kentons

Howells, William Dean, 1837-1920Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.3

Word count: 422K words
Chapters: 43

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 Kentons by William Dean HowellsAuthor: Howells, William Dean, 1837-1920,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Oct 24, 2004

Editor's review

The Kentons is a mature family novel by Howells, tracing an American family's move to Europe after a daughter's romantic upheaval and, through the texture of expatriate daily life, exploring generational difference, ideas of marriage, and cultural collision. Howells is known for a realist's restraint and gentle irony: dialogue is natural, scenes are plain, and psychological portraiture rewards patient reading; rather than driving forward on dramatic conflict, the novel builds tension through accumulated detail. For readers familiar with late-nineteenth-century American society, it is a vivid sample for understanding middle-class family ethics and transatlantic cultural attitudes. Read slowly and attend to the narrator's understated judgments of character. Suitable as supplementary reading in American realism or for those studying family narrative and travel writing. The electronic edition is taken from Project Gutenberg, a free public-domain resource convenient for searching and checking against the original text.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy nineteenth-century American realist fiction
Scholars and students of Howells and American middle-class family narrative
Readers interested in transatlantic travel and cultural difference
Advanced learners seeking English public-domain books for long-form reading practice

Not a good fit for

Readers of genre fiction who prefer strong plot and fast pacing
Beginning English readers who need a Chinese translation or annotations
Readers expecting systematic social critique or radical views

Reading tips

Read the opening family scene first and map the characters before moving into the European sections
Set a fixed weekly page count and take notes on details of generational conflict
Consult background material on late-nineteenth-century American society to understand the characters' choices
After finishing, revisit the narrator's understated evaluations of the Kentons to appreciate the measure of the irony

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 suitable for non-native English readers to read in the original?

The language is late-nineteenth-century American literary prose, with long sentences and many cultural allusions, so readers at an upper-intermediate level or above will find it easier to enter; beginners can read chapter summaries first and proceed chapter by chapter, or read alongside a Chinese translation.

What is the novel mainly about?

It follows the Kenton family as they leave America and live in Europe after a daughter's romantic entanglement; the focus is not on suspenseful plot but on how family members get along in a foreign setting, their differences of outlook, and their emotional adjustment.

What are the features of the Project Gutenberg edition?

It is a free public-domain ebook released by Project Gutenberg; the text is freely available and searchable and usually contains no modern editorial notes or introduction, so it suits readers who prepare their own background material before reading the original.

Comments

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About the author

Howells, William Dean, 1837-1920 Author

William Dean Howells (1837–1920) was an American author and literary editor, with 107 works held in the collection. His writing spans novels, travel books, memoirs, and literary essays, and his representative works include My Mark Twain, Indian Summer, A Boy's Town, A Modern Instance, and A Hazard of New Fortunes. Howells drew on close observation of everyday life, writing in a plain style with gentle irony and attending to moral questions and human situations amid social change; his travel book Venetian Life and his memoir Literary Friends and Acquaintance record his journeys and personal recollections of American literary figures. Public information is limited, so biographical details are not elaborated here; readers may turn to the works above to learn about his subjects and style.