The Perils and Adventures of Harry Skipwith by Land and Sea

William Henry Giles KingstonProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.1
Word count
461K words
Chapters
47

Tags

English Originals Foreign Literature Legendary LivesAdventure JourneyFate and FortuneBoy HeroNautical LegendExotic AdventureExotic CultureVictorian Era

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 Perils and Adventures of Harry Skipwith by Land and Sea by KingstonAuthor: Kingston, William Henry Giles, 1814-1880,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Nov 29, 2010

Editor's review

Kingston was a major nineteenth-century British writer of adventure fiction for young readers. This book follows young Harry Skipwith's adventures by land and sea, with a tightly paced plot and varied settings that combine seafaring, travel, and coming-of-age elements. It continues the typical style of Victorian adventure narrative: emphasizing courage, resourcefulness, and integrity, and testing the protagonist's judgment and character through repeated danger. The descriptions of sea voyages, foreign lands, and the natural environment convey the distinctive atmosphere of adventure literature of that era. For readers who want to understand the tradition of English adventure fiction for young readers, or who wish to approach nineteenth-century English narrative in a relatively accessible way, this is a representative introductory work. This is the public-domain Project Gutenberg electronic edition, convenient for searching and reading on the go, and suitable as extensive reading material or a family read-aloud selection. One caveat: the original language bears the marks of its time, and some nautical terms and older expressions may require checking, so using an annotated or guided edition is recommended.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the chapter titles first to trace the sequence of adventures, then read through in order to follow the protagonist's growth.
  2. Mark nautical and older expressions as you go, and look them up after finishing each chapter to avoid breaking the rhythm.
  3. Read alongside a map or basic nautical reference to strengthen the sense of space in the scenes.
  4. For family reading, discuss the protagonist's choices after each chapter and connect them to courage and judgment in real life.

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

FAQ

Is this book suitable for young readers who have never read an English original? It can be tried, but parents or teachers should ideally accompany them at first. The original is nineteenth-century English, with period sentence patterns and vocabulary and many nautical terms. Stronger middle-school students can read it independently; others should use annotations or a guide, starting with excerpts before reading the whole book.
What should readers keep in mind when using the Project Gutenberg edition? This is a free public-domain e-book, convenient to download and search, but it usually contains no modern annotations or introduction. Readers need their own dictionary or annotation tools and should note differences in e-book formatting. It suits extensive reading and reference lookups, not direct use as a close-reading classroom textbook.
How does this book compare with the author's other adventure novels? It covers both land and sea adventure, spanning a wide range of settings, with the protagonist tested in many environments and a relatively clear growth arc. Compared with works set only at sea, it offers richer variety of scene, suiting readers who want several kinds of adventure in one book.
What can readers gain from this book? Readers can learn about the narrative patterns and values of nineteenth-century British adventure fiction for young readers, see how themes such as courage, resourcefulness, and integrity are expressed, and build English vocabulary related to seafaring and travel. It is better as an introduction to a literary tradition and to language learning than as a history or geography reference.

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About the author

William Henry Giles Kingston Author · British · 1814–1880

William Henry Giles Kingston (1814–1880) was a British author of adventure stories for young readers. Born in London, he spent part of his youth with his father in Porto, Portugal. He rose to fame in 1851 with Peter the Whaler and thereafter devoted himself to tales of the sea and exploration, writing more than a hundred books over his lifetime and also translating works by Jules Verne. His notable works include The Three Midshipmen, Captain Cook: His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries, and Great African Travellers: From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley, most of them drawing on seafaring, exotic adventure, and the deeds of the British Navy. He excelled at linking the adventures of young protagonists with informative and moral content, in briskly paced stories rich in maritime atmosphere that were widely popular with young readers in the Victorian era. The collection here contains 133 of his works. Public information on his early education and specific experiences is limited, so no conjecture is offered here.