The Nest of the Sparrowhawk: A Romance of the XVIIth Century

Orczy, Emmuska Orczy, Baroness, 1865-1947Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.4
Word count
530K words
Chapters
53

Tags

English Originals Historical FictionForeign Literature British HistoryAdventure JourneyLove EntanglementsPower GamesSeventeenth Century

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 Nest of the Sparrowhawk: A Romance of the XVIIth Century by OrczyAuthor: Orczy, Emmuska Orczy, Baroness, 1865-1947,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Apr 1, 2004

Editor's review

This book is one of Baroness Orczy’s historical romances besides The Scarlet Pimpernel. Set in the seventeenth century, its plot revolves around disguise, mistaken identity, and revenge. The author excels at weaving tension and suspense into an authentic historical atmosphere; the dialogue and scene descriptions have a marked theatrical quality, and the pace is brisk. As a free eBook from Project Gutenberg, it preserves the vocabulary and sentence patterns of the original English, making it a useful sample for understanding the narrative style of early twentieth-century popular historical fiction. Reading it offers both the pleasure of a driving plot and the chance to observe how the author uses the period setting to create conflict. For readers who enjoy classic adventure romances and have a basic interest in seventeenth-century English history, this is a cost-effective light read; those expecting rigorous historical research or modern psychological depth should adjust their expectations.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the opening chapters first to establish the characters and the clues of disguise, then follow the chapters in order.
  2. Mark old-fashioned English expressions as you go and review them after finishing a section; there is no need to look up every word.
  3. Pair the reading with concise background material on seventeenth-century English history to understand the period setting.
  4. For extensive reading practice, summarize the plot of each chapter in one or two sentences to check comprehension.

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

FAQ

Is this book the original English text or a Chinese translation? According to the Project Gutenberg entry, the book is in English and is an original English public-domain eBook, not a Chinese translation. Reading it requires a certain level of English proficiency, especially the ability to adapt to the vocabulary and sentence patterns of early twentieth-century popular fiction.
Can I read this without having read other works by Baroness Orczy? Yes. This is a standalone historical romance that does not depend on prior events from the author’s other works. A basic interest in the seventeenth-century setting is enough to follow the plot; familiarity with the narrative style of The Scarlet Pimpernel will make it easier to get into the rhythm.
Is this book suitable for learning English? It is suitable as extensive reading material for intermediate and advanced English learners. The plot moves quickly and provides sustained reading motivation, but the sentence patterns are old-fashioned and some expressions are distant from modern English. Focus on understanding the plot rather than checking every word, and afterward select a few passages for close reading and analysis.

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About the author

Orczy, Emmuska Orczy, Baroness, 1865-1947 Author

Baroness Orczy (1865–1947) is known in the history of popular English fiction as the author of the Scarlet Pimpernel series. The library holds nineteen of her works, including The Scarlet Pimpernel and its sequels, such as The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, The Elusive Pimpernel and El Dorado, as well as the detective collection The Old Man in the Corner. Her writing is marked by tight plotting and sustained suspense, often weaving disguise and reversal into adventure stories; the figure of the Scarlet Pimpernel has influenced later heroic adventure narratives. Public information is limited, so details of her life are omitted here, and this introduction focuses on the themes and style of her works.