The Lords of the Wild: A Story of the Old New York Border

Altsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander), 1862-1919Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
428K words
Chapters
43

Tags

English Originals Historical FictionForeign Literature Military StrategyWilderness SurvivalHeroismFrontier AdventureColonial AmericaExotic CultureYouth 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 Lords of the Wild: A Story of the Old New York Border by Joseph A. AltshelerAuthor: Altsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander), 1862-1919,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Apr 1, 2004

Editor's review

Altsheler's The Lords of the Wild is a historical adventure novel set on the old New York border and belongs to juvenile literature. The author excels at writing frontier life, forest tracking, and scenes of conflict with tight pacing; the plot advances through action and suspense, making for a brisk read. The descriptions of the wilderness are concrete, conveying a sense of space and period atmosphere in the border region. As a public-domain eBook, it is better suited to leisure reading as genre fiction than to use as a strict history textbook: its characterizations bear the marks of their time, and readers should treat it as a story rather than historical fact. The English original is generally plain and suitable for learners who want to build reading volume through fiction. Reading chapter by chapter is recommended, with attention to how character relationships and geographical clues develop.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Start with the table of contents to understand the chapter structure, proceed chapter by chapter, and review the main action line after each reading.
  2. Prepare a simple map and mark the border locations that appear in the book to help understand spatial relationships.
  3. Divide unfamiliar words into two categories—environmental description and character action—and prioritize high-frequency words that drive the plot.
  4. After finishing, briefly retell the main conflict to check whether you have grasped character motivations and the causes and effects of events.

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
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43

FAQ

What English level is this book suitable for? The original wording is generally plain but contains old-fashioned expressions and place names. An intermediate reading level is enough to attempt it, though you may need to look up words at first. Try reading one chapter first; if there are too many unfamiliar words per page, switch to bilingual reading or start with a simplified edition.
Is the historical background in the book reliable? It is a historical adventure novel set on the old New York border, but the plot and characters serve the story and should not be treated as historical evidence. If you are interested in the related history, find general history books to read alongside it.
Why is it classified as juvenile literature? The materials classify it under juvenile belles lettres, that is, the juvenile literature category. This sets reading expectations: it is driven mainly by adventure, growth, and action rather than adult-oriented complex psychology or social analysis.
What practical advice is there for reading the electronic edition? You can use the search function to look up recurring names and place names, and use bookmarks to mark chapters. If reading on a phone, increase the line spacing to reduce fatigue. Set a fixed goal of one or two chapters a day to keep the plot coherent.

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About the author

Altsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander), 1862-1919 Author

Joseph A. Altsheler (1862–1919) was an American author known for historical adventure novels, with 33 of his works held in this collection. Because public information is limited, details of his life are difficult to set out, yet his works show that he drew on American history, especially the frontier and the Civil War era. Representative titles include The Riflemen of the Ohio, The Guns of Bull Run, The Forest Runners, The Hunters of the Hills, The Rulers of the Lakes and The Shades of the Wilderness, most set in early Kentucky, the Great Lakes region or the Civil War. His novels are tightly plotted, stress historical atmosphere and youthful adventure, and often appear in series; they had a certain influence on early twentieth-century American historical reading for young people.