The Ocean Cat's Paw: The Story of a Strange Cruise

Fenn, George Manville, 1831-1909Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
753K words
Chapters
76

Tags

English Originals Featured Fiction Natural HistoryMarine LifeScientific VoyageQuest for a SpecimenThrilling PlotSea AdventureAdventure TaleExotic AdventureYouth Reading

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 Ocean Cat's Paw: The Story of a Strange Cruise by George Manville FennAuthor: Fenn, George Manville, 1831-1909,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: May 8, 2007

Editor's review

This work is a typical example of George Manville Fenn's sea adventure novels, built around a strange voyage full of the unknown. The plot advances through a steady succession of crises and resolutions, keeping up a brisk pace. A longtime writer for young readers, the author uses plain language and vivid imagery, and relies on dialogue and action to drive the story forward, so there is hardly a dull stretch. The descriptions of life aboard ship, sea weather, and exotic settings serve the adventure while naturally bringing out themes of courage, responsibility, and trust among companions. It is well suited as an introduction to the style of late nineteenth-century English boys' adventure fiction. As a public-domain eBook from Project Gutenberg, it is easy to obtain and moderate in length, making it especially suitable for reading in installments during commutes or travel, and also useful for English learners as extensive reading material, building up nautical and everyday expressions while following the plot. One caveat: the work bears clear marks of its era, and certain expressions should be viewed with historical perspective.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read through once for the plot without looking up every word; on the second pass, collect nautical terms and high-frequency expressions.
  2. Write a brief plot summary for each chapter to help track character relationships and changes in the voyage route.
  3. For English study, read dialogue-heavy passages aloud to get a feel for colloquial expression.
  4. After reading, compare with other adventure novels by the same author to note similarities and differences in narrative formula.

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
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76

FAQ

Is this book in Chinese or English? The original is in English, released as a public-domain eBook by Project Gutenberg. The edition provided here is the English original with no Chinese translation included, so some English proficiency is needed.
Can I understand it without nautical knowledge? Yes. Nautical terms are mostly background description and do not affect understanding of the main plot; for repeatedly appearing ship-part names, look them up once in a batch rather than pausing on every page.
What age group is it suitable for? The original was written for young readers, with a plot centered on adventure and the resolution of crises in plain language. Non-native English readers should have at least junior high school English, or read with a teacher or parent.
Why choose the Project Gutenberg edition? Project Gutenberg provides free, legally available public-domain electronic texts that are convenient to use on a computer, phone, or e-reader, and easy to copy passages from for language-learning notes.

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About the author

Fenn, George Manville, 1831-1909 Author

George Manville Fenn (1831–1909) was a British author whose biographical details remain limited in publicly available sources. The library holds 127 of his works, including The Little Skipper: A Son of a Sailor, The Silver Canyon: A Tale of the Western Plains, and Sappers and Miners: The Flood beneath the Sea. Most center on youthful growth and adventure, often set at sea, in mining districts, or on the western plains. He also wrote such biographical work as George Alfred Henty: The Story of an Active Life. His writing emphasizes plot momentum and the shaping of character in young readers, and is commonly classified as inspirational coming-of-age fiction, holding a place in the tradition of juvenile adventure novels.