The Mentor: Venice, the Island City, Vol. 1, Num. 27, Serial No. 27

Dwight Lathrop ElmendorfProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.2

Word count: 37K words
Chapters: 4

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 Mentor: Venice, the Island City, Vol. 1, Num. 27, Serial No. 27 by ElmendorfAuthor: Elmendorf, Dwight L. (Dwight Lathrop), 1859-1929,Language: English, Class: DG: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Italy, Vatican City, Malta, Release Date: Sep 6, 2015

Editor's review

This is an issue of The Mentor magazine devoted to Venice, the island city, part of a series of popular-knowledge publications for general readers in the early 20th century. Author Dwight L. Elmendorf introduces Venice's geography, urban landscape, and history in an illustrated narrative. It is short and plainly written, suitable as an introductory text on Venice. Its value lies not in scholarly depth but in preserving how travelers and educators of that era saw Venice; it can be read alongside modern travel guides to sense how writing about cities has changed. As a free Project Gutenberg e-book, it is easy to obtain, handy for dipping into around a commute or a short trip, and useful as English extensive-reading material for building vocabulary related to architecture, canals, and urban history.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers planning a trip to Venice who want background on the city first
Readers interested in early 20th-century popular-knowledge publications and travel writing
Intermediate to advanced English learners seeking short extensive-reading material
General readers with a casual interest in Italian urban history

Not a good fit for

Professional historians needing systematic scholarly material
Tourists expecting detailed practical information and up-to-date travel advice
Beginners with limited English reading ability who need a Chinese parallel text

Reading tips

Read through once for an overall impression, then use a map to locate the places mentioned.
Read it alongside a modern Venice guide and compare how the city is described in different eras.
When using it for extensive reading, finish each piece in one sitting and note city-related vocabulary.

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

Is this book a complete Venice travel guide?

No. It is an issue of The Mentor magazine focused on Venice's urban landscape and historical background. It is limited in length and contains no practical information such as transport, accommodation, or ticket prices, so it is better as pre-trip background reading than as a pocket guide.

What level of English is needed to read this book?

The original is in English, with fairly plain sentence structures typical of popular writing for a general audience. Readers with intermediate English can finish it with a dictionary, and intermediate to advanced learners can use it as extensive reading for city and history vocabulary.

Why choose the Project Gutenberg edition?

Project Gutenberg offers free electronic texts with low barriers to access, easy to consult anytime on a computer, phone, or e-reader. This public-domain e-book suits readers on a budget or those who want a quick trial read, though its layout and notes are basic.

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

Dwight Lathrop Elmendorf Author · American · 1859–1929

Dwight Lathrop Elmendorf (1859–1929) was an American travel photographer, lantern-slide lecturer and writer. Born in Brooklyn and a graduate of Princeton University, he taught at a school for the deaf and served as a war correspondent during the Spanish-American War. He later became known for his around-the-world travel lectures and wrote travel articles for The Mentor, dying in New York in 1929. Seven of his works are held here, most of them from The Mentor series, covering Venice, Holland, Spain and Gibraltar, the Mediterranean, Yosemite Valley, Scotland and Egypt. These pieces combine guidebook features with popular geography, drawing on first-hand observation and emphasizing scenery and cultural anecdote, illustrated with photographs and lantern slides; they served the growing public travel education of the day and helped spread geographical knowledge to a wide audience.