The Mysteries of Paris, Volume 6 of 6

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

Rating 3.6
Word count
457K words
Chapters
46

Tags

English Originals Social FictionMystery and Suspense 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 6 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 final volume of the six-volume The Mysteries of Paris closes the novel's multiple character arcs and relates the fates of its principal figures. A typical example of nineteenth-century French serial fiction, Eugène Sue's novel uses Paris as its stage, weaving lower-class hardship, the criminal underworld, and upper-class moral problems into a suspenseful plot; the themes of poetic justice and redemption are especially concentrated in this last volume. The value of reading it lies not only in learning how the story ends but also in observing how serial fiction balanced commercial pacing against moral edification and how urban space was used as a framework for social critique. This volume suits readers who have finished the first five volumes and want to read to the end in one sitting, as well as researchers examining how the final volume brings the work to a close and where its themes come to rest. Note that this volume, too, cannot stand alone, and that the text is a public-domain English electronic edition lacking modern annotation; some historical background must be supplied by the reader.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read this volume together with the first five, paying attention to how each character arc is resolved
  2. Briefly review the main character relationships before the final volume to reduce confusion after a long gap
  3. Note specific instances of poetic justice and redemption to support an overall assessment of the work
  4. After finishing, consult literary-historical sources to understand how serial fiction was produced and received

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

FAQ

What narrative tasks does the final volume mainly accomplish? As the last of six volumes, it mainly relates the principal characters' final fates, resolves the suspense and conflicts set up earlier, and concentrates the work's moral themes. The specific plot requires reading the first five volumes; the final volume alone does not give a complete understanding.
Who is the public-domain English electronic edition suitable for? It suits readers able to read the English original who want free access to the text, and researchers who need to search passages in the original. Such editions generally lack modern annotation and introductions; for scholarly citation, check a print or critical edition and supply historical background yourself.
Why is this work considered valuable for social history? Set in Paris, it describes the living conditions and criminal problems of different classes in broad scope, reflecting nineteenth-century urban social imaginings and anxieties. Its attention to lower-class suffering and its call for moral reform make it a source for understanding how popular literature engaged with social issues of the time, though its exaggeration and ideological limitations should be kept in mind.

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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.