The Land Beyond the Forest: Facts, Figures, and Fancies from Transylvania

Gerard, E. (Emily), 1849-1905Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.0
Word count
864K words
Chapters
87

Tags

English Originals CultureTravel Anthropological StudyTravelogueRegional CultureCurious CustomsExotic CultureStrange TalesEuropean CultureFolk CustomsFolk LegendTransylvania

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 Land Beyond the Forest: Facts, Figures, and Fancies from Transylvania by GerardAuthor: Gerard, E. (Emily), 1849-1905,Language: English, Class: DB: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Release Date: May 16, 2018

Editor's review

This book is a travelogue-style ethnography written by the late nineteenth-century British author Emily Gerard after traveling through Transylvania, combining firsthand observation with a collection of folk legends. From a firsthand perspective, the author records the customs, dress, food, religious beliefs, and oral stories of local Romanians, Hungarians, Roma, and other groups; the chapters on vampire legends, folk superstitions, and festival rituals are especially valuable for folklore studies. The prose bears the clear marks of Victorian travel writing: vivid, rich in detail, and inevitably mixed with the era's European imaginings and prejudices about Eastern Europe, which allows today's readers to observe how an age viewed "the other." As a public-domain e-book, it is suitable as extended reading for those interested in Eastern European history, folklore, and travel literature, and as source material for writers and translators. It is best read as "historical document and text" rather than as a "guide," with attention to distinguishing field observation from hearsay relayed by the author.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Start with the table of contents and choose the folklore and festival chapters as an entry point, then return to the sections on social customs.
  2. Mark as you read which tales are relayed by the author and which are firsthand observations, and note the difference between the two kinds of material.
  3. Read alongside historical maps of Eastern Europe or regional histories to make up for the book's brief treatment of geography and political background.

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
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  9. 9
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  42. 42
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  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
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  80. 80
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  82. 82
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FAQ

Is this book a novel or a work of nonfiction? It is travel writing of a documentary nature: the author records the customs, folk beliefs, and oral stories of local inhabitants based on her travels in Transylvania, mixed with personal impressions and relayed hearsay. It is not a work of fiction.
Is the content still accurate today? Some descriptions of customs and geography still have reference value, but the book was completed in the late nineteenth century, and the author's observations carry the limitations of the era and an outsider's perspective; some judgments and secondhand accounts may not be reliable. It is best read as a historical text rather than as a basis for contemporary facts.
How difficult is the English, and is it suitable for non-native readers? The original is nineteenth-century English with long sentences and occasional archaic spellings and local vocabulary, making it harder than contemporary popular writing. Readers with intermediate-to-advanced English can read it with a dictionary and notes; beginners should read selected chapters.

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About the author

Gerard, E. (Emily), 1849-1905 Author

Emily Gerard (1849–1905), known as E. Gerard, was a British woman of letters in the nineteenth century, remembered chiefly for her travel writing and records of folklore. Her work centres on Transylvania: The Land Beyond the Forest: Facts, Figures, and Fancies from Transylvania and Transylvanian Superstitions both take that region as their subject. The former combines firsthand observation with statistics and local legend, blending the immediacy of travel narrative with a naturalist's eye; the latter concentrates on popular beliefs and customs, presenting the worldview of the people of the Carpathian uplands. Her writing attends closely to detail and remains highly readable, offering English-language readers an early and vivid account of the region. Public information about her is limited, and biographical details are largely unavailable, yet these two works are still consulted for their record of Transylvanian folklore and retain a degree of documentary value.