The Mask: A Story of Love and Adventure

Arthur HornblowProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
350K words
Chapters
36

Tags

English Originals Romance Fiction Suspense ThrillerLove EntanglementsLove and AdventureTurbulent PlotIdentity MysteryMask ImageryExotic Culture

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 Mask: A Story of Love and Adventure by Arthur HornblowAuthor: Hornblow, Arthur, 1865-1942,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Dec 18, 2006

Editor's review

This novel by the American writer Arthur Hornblow belongs to the popular narrative tradition of the early twentieth century, interweaving a love story with adventure. As a free Project Gutenberg ebook, its barrier to access lies in the language rather than the channel. Its value lies in showing the narrative rhythm of popular fiction of that era: plot advances directly, character motives are clear, and scenes shift frequently—suitable for readers who want a sense of early twentieth-century American popular literature. Titled after a mask, the story revolves around love and adventure; readers may note how the author alternates suspense and the emotional thread. Being a public-domain electronic text, it is plainly formatted, with no modern introduction or notes, so readers must navigate period background and vocabulary differences themselves. It is not for those seeking the depth of a literary classic or contemporary narrative technique, but as English extensive-reading material and a supplement to the history of genre fiction, it retains reference value in several respects.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read a chapter or two first to gauge the language difficulty, then decide whether to read it through or selectively.
  2. Trace the love story and the adventure line separately, and observe how the author alternates between them.
  3. Mark unfamiliar period vocabulary and look it up after finishing a chapter rather than interrupting yourself constantly.
  4. Read it alongside other public-domain popular novels to appreciate the narrative conventions shared by such works.

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

FAQ

How difficult is the English in this book? It is early twentieth-century popular-fiction English. Sentence structures are not very complex, but period vocabulary and cultural background differences will come up. Readers with intermediate English can get through it with a dictionary; beginners should sample the opening chapters first.
Why does the electronic edition have no modern introduction or notes? The book comes from Project Gutenberg, whose mission is to provide free public-domain electronic texts, typically preserving the original content without modern editorial material. Readers need to supply period background knowledge themselves or consult relevant literary histories.
Is the story more about love or more about adventure? Judging from the title and the available information, love and adventure are parallel main threads. The exact balance requires reading the text to determine; readers are advised to watch how the two threads alternate between chapters, which is itself a point of interest in the book's narrative.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Arthur Hornblow Author · British-American · 1865–1942

Arthur Hornblow (1865–1942) was a British-born American. Born in Manchester, England, in 1865, he studied in Paris and moved to the United States in 1889, where he became editor of the New York Dramatic Mirror and later read scripts for the producer Palmer. From 1901 to 1926 he founded and edited The Theatre Magazine, remaining active in American theatre and publishing circles. His writings span theatre history and popular fiction. Three of his works are held here: The Mask: A Story of Love and Adventure, By Right of Conquest: A Novel, and Bought and Paid For, adapted from the play by George Broadhurst. These works centre on love, adventure and social entanglements, with strong plots and a popular narrative flavour that reflects his background in theatre editing and script reading. He died in New Jersey in 1942. Public information is limited, and the reception of his works awaits further research.