The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction

VariousProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.4

Word count: 84K words
Chapters: 9

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 Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction by VariousAuthor: Various,Language: English, Class: AP: General Works: Periodicals, Release Date: Apr 1, 2004

Editor's review

This book is an electronic edition of the nineteenth-century British miscellany The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, released by Project Gutenberg as a public-domain text. Its value lies not in systematic knowledge but in preserving the reading tastes and intellectual horizons of an era: literary essays, anecdotes, popular science, and practical guidance are intermixed, showing how middle-class readers of the time sought both amusement and edification within a single periodical. For today's reader it is less a monograph to be read cover to cover than a window onto the everyday mental life of the Victorian age. Its strengths are variety of genre and brevity of piece, making it suitable for dip-in reading; the original is in English, and its language bears the marks of its period, requiring some patience. Best read as research material, writing source material, or casual bedtime browsing; do not expect a continuous narrative.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Researchers interested in nineteenth-century British periodical culture and the history of everyday reading
English learners seeking Victorian-era language and writing material
Casual readers who enjoy short essays and anecdote collections

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking systematic literary history or scientific knowledge
Beginners with weak English reading skills who need modern annotations

Reading tips

Pick sections that interest you from the table of contents rather than following the original order.
Note period vocabulary as you go and use a dictionary and background sources to understand it.
Use it as a source bank for research or writing, excerpting and sorting by theme.

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 the complete periodical or a selection?

It is an electronic edition prepared by Project Gutenberg from a public-domain text, containing content from the periodical; for the exact pieces and completeness, consult the actual table of contents and file notes, and browse the contents and file description before reading.

How difficult is the English, and is it good for reading practice?

The original is nineteenth-century English, with period features in syntax and vocabulary, harder than modern popular writing. Readers with some foundation can use it for extensive reading, but should keep a dictionary at hand; it is not the best first choice for beginners.

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

Various Author

Various is not a real person but a collective attribution used in book cataloging and databases for works with multiple authors, commonly applied to anthologies, compilations, or publications with too many contributors to list individually. On this Chinese book site, this attribution covers as many as 3,387 titles, spanning encyclopedic entries, historical documents, and trial records. Representative works include several volumes of the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the record of the trial of the major war criminals before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Available public information is limited: nationality, birth and death dates, and common categories are not clearly recorded, making it difficult to summarize a unified writing style or personal biography. Readers should understand it as a cataloging convention rather than a single author.