The Lost Door

Quick, Dorothy, 1896-1962Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 49K 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 Lost Door by Dorothy QuickAuthor: Quick, Dorothy, 1896-1962,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jun 16, 2010

Editor's review

The Lost Door is a work by Dorothy Quick (1896–1962), included in the Project Gutenberg public-domain e-book collection. The available information only identifies it as belonging to American and Canadian literature and provides no plot summary, so its story should not be guessed at. Judging from the author's identity and the imagery of the title, it is more likely a novel with elements of suspense or fantasy, suitable as a sample for understanding the landscape of early twentieth-century American popular literature. Its editorial value lies in making an easily forgotten work accessible again as a low-cost electronic text, allowing readers to observe the position of women authors in genre fiction of the time. It suits short bedtime reading or as an addition to the reading list of genre-fiction enthusiasts. A caveat: it lacks a modern introduction and annotations, so first-time readers may need patience to enter its context.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in American popular and genre fiction of the first half of the twentieth century
Exploratory readers who want to expand their reading of public-domain e-books and are willing to judge a work's value for themselves
Literary enthusiasts interested in early women authors and in tracing the contours of popular literature

Not a good fit for

Cautious readers who need a clear plot summary or modern introduction before starting
Readers who only want classics and lack patience for obscure public-domain novels
Learners who find English difficult and rely on Chinese translations

Reading tips

Read the first two or three chapters to gauge the narrative pace and genre tendencies before deciding whether to read it through.
Record character relationships and suspense clues as you read, so you can organize the work yourself in the absence of an introduction.
Read it alongside short stories and novellas by other American women authors of the same period to observe differences in subject matter and technique.

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 the story about?

The available information only identifies the author, title, and literary category, with no plot summary. To avoid fabrication, the specific story cannot be summarized. It is advisable to read the opening chapters of the e-book or consult other reliable bibliographic sources before deciding whether to go further.

Why is there no content summary?

The book comes from a public-domain electronic text on Project Gutenberg, whose information page lists only metadata such as author, language, and category, without a content summary. This is common with such reproduced e-books, and readers must turn to the text itself to learn more.

Is it suitable for English learners practicing reading?

It can serve as extensive reading material, but it is a literary text from the first half of the twentieth century whose syntax and vocabulary were not designed for teaching, and it has no annotations. Learners at intermediate level or above who are used to reading original novels are better suited; beginners may be discouraged by the lack of background information.

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About the author

Quick, Dorothy, 1896-1962 Author · American · 1896–1962

Dorothy Quick (1896–1962) was an American writer. Public information about her is limited, and her name is chiefly associated with her acquaintance with Mark Twain in his later years: she met the author as a young girl, and this experience has served as a piece of evidence for later generations seeking to understand Twain's final years. She herself wrote fiction and reminiscences, and her representative work is The Lost Door. Judging from the surviving records, her writing spans both fiction and non-fiction—the former displaying narrative imagination, the latter recording, from a firsthand perspective, her dealings with an older literary figure, and thus possessing some documentary value. Because few of her works survive and little research exists on her, her literary standing has yet to be fully discussed, and her writing style and broader influence remain to be further examined.