The Mysteries of Paris, Volume 2 of 6

Sue, Eugène, 1804-1857Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.6
Word count
578K words
Chapters
58

Tags

English Originals Foreign Literature Suspense ThrillerUrban UnderworldPortrait GalleryFate and FortuneComplex HumanitySocial Critique

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 Mysteries of Paris, Volume 2 of 6 by Eugène SueAuthor: Sue, Eugène, 1804-1857,Language: English, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Sep 22, 2010

Editor's review

This is the second of six volumes of Eugène Sue's The Mysteries of Paris, positioned where the work moves from opening exposition toward deeper plot development. In this volume readers typically see more interwoven character relationships and expanded social scenes; it is an important stage for understanding how this nineteenth-century French serial novel uses popular narrative to present the urban poor, moral conflict, and social critique. The Project Gutenberg English public-domain ebook preserves the original text and is suitable for volume-by-volume study by literary historians, popular-fiction enthusiasts, and readers interested in nineteenth-century French social writing. As a volume-by-volume electronic edition, it lacks modern notes and introductions, and its plot depends on the groundwork of Volume 1, so reading requires some ability to organize threads. It suits readers with a systematic reading plan rather than those who want to open it at random and get a complete story.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Finish Volume 1 and compile a list of main characters before starting this volume, to avoid getting lost because of dependent threads.
  2. Proceed chapter by chapter and briefly record newly appearing characters and key conflicts after each chapter for later review.
  3. Read alongside materials on nineteenth-century Paris social history to deepen understanding of the novel's social scenes.
  4. Use ebook annotation features to mark foreshadowing and changes in character relationships for easy cross-volume reference.

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
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58

FAQ

Is Volume 2 closely connected to Volume 1? Yes, closely. As the second volume of a six-volume novel, it carries forward the characters and plot threads set up in Volume 1 and builds more conflicts and social scenes on that basis. Without reading Volume 1, it is easy to misunderstand characters' motives and the causes of events; reading in order is recommended.
Is this electronic edition suitable for academic citation? This is an English public-domain ebook released by Project Gutenberg and can serve as reading and general research reference. However, the information does not state that it includes modern textual collation, notes, or a scholarly introduction; for formal academic citation, check authoritative editions and supplement the relevant bibliographic information.
How difficult is it to read in English? The work is an English translation of a nineteenth-century French novel, with a large narrative scale and many characters, and its language style carries period features. It is more suitable for readers with some experience of reading long English works; those with less experience can first learn the story background or use character-relationship notes to reduce the difficulty.

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About the author

Sue, Eugène, 1804-1857 Author

Eugène Sue (1804–1857) was a French novelist best known for his serial novels. His masterpiece Les mystères de Paris (The Mysteries of Paris) is set among the poor of Paris and depicts the extremes of wealth and poverty and the darker side of urban life, causing a great sensation in the mid-nineteenth century; his other series, Les mystères du peuple (The Mysteries of the People), uses historical narrative to express social criticism. The library holds sixty-six of his works, mostly volumes and English translations of these two series, showing that he wrote chiefly long serial fiction focused on social issues and historical legend. Public information is limited, so details of his life cannot be expanded here, but his works reveal a talent for presenting social reality in a popular, dramatic style that influenced later social novels and serial literature.