The Little Quaker or, the Triumph of Virtue. A Tale for the Instruction of

Moodie, Susanna, 1803-1885Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.3
Word count
81K words
Chapters
9

Tags

English Originals Children's Literature Family BondsReligious BeliefGrowing UpMoral InstructionTruth Goodness BeautyWestern ThoughtMoral CultivationHeartwarming NarrativeTraditional VirtueYouth Reading

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 Little Quaker; or, the Triumph of Virtue. A Tale for the Instruction ofAuthor: Moodie, Susanna, 1803-1885,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Dec 19, 2007

Editor's review

The Little Quaker; or, the Triumph of Virtue is a didactic children's story by the early Canadian author Susanna Moodie (1803–1885); its subtitle, literally "the triumph of virtue," makes its educational purpose explicit. Moodie is best known for移民-themed works such as Roughing It in the Bush, whereas this book addresses young readers, using the figure of a little Quaker to teach conduct and self-restraint. The language is plain and the book short, with the admonitory structure typical of nineteenth-century children's literature: characters are clearly divided into good and bad, and the plot serves the moral conclusion. For Chinese readers its main value is documentary—it offers a way to observe the didactic conventions of English-language children's reading at the time, the religious vocabulary, and the presentation of the Quaker image in popular literature. The Project Gutenberg edition facilitates full-text searching and citation. It is best read as a historical text rather than a modern children's story; note the distinction between period attitudes and universal values, and if used in teaching, students can be guided to compare such admonitory tales with contemporary coming-of-age fiction.

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Reading tips

  1. Read the subtitle and chapter titles first to grasp the admonitory structure before entering the text
  2. Note the religious and conduct-related vocabulary that recurs in the book and make a short glossary
  3. Read alongside Moodie's immigration-themed works to observe differences in her intended audience
  4. When using it as a teaching text, set discussion questions before assigning chapters

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

FAQ

What is the relationship between this book and Moodie's immigration works? Moodie is known for works such as Roughing It in the Bush, which record immigrant life in Canada; this book is a didactic story for young readers, differing in subject and audience. The two can be read in comparison to observe differences in language and stance between the same author's adult documentary and children's admonitory writing, but this book should not be used as historical source material on immigration.
What are the characteristics of the Quaker image in the book? Judging from the subtitle and the admonitory framework, the little Quaker is shaped as a moral exemplar of restraint, honesty, and trustworthiness; the identity serves a largely symbolic function rather than offering a systematic introduction to Quaker faith. Readers should regard it as a typified image in nineteenth-century popular literature and not form an overall understanding of Quakers from it.
Is the Project Gutenberg edition suitable for academic citation? It can serve as a base text for reading and preliminary citation; the Project Gutenberg edition allows full-text searching and makes it easy to locate passages and copy text. For academic publication, however, it is advisable to check a more authoritative edition or a facsimile to confirm pagination, textual collation, and publication details, and to note the source and access date of the electronic edition used.

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About the author

Moodie, Susanna, 1803-1885 Author

Susanna Moodie (1803-1885) was an important writer of early Canadian pioneer literature. The collection holds 14 of her works, including Roughing It in the Bush, Life in the Backwoods, and Life in the Clearings versus the Bush. Her writing drew largely on her own experience of an immigrant family settling in the wilderness, recording the labours of clearing land, domestic life, and the natural world in plain, delicate prose that combines cool social observation with a lyrical touch; she also wrote poetry and fiction, such as Enthusiasm and Other Poems and The Monctons. Her works offer vivid material for understanding nineteenth-century Canadian pioneer life and hold a pioneering place in Canadian literary history. Public information is limited, so biographical details are omitted.