The Plum Tree

Phillips, David Graham, 1867-1911Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.5

Word count: 400K words
Chapters: 40

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 Plum Tree by David Graham PhillipsAuthor: Phillips, David Graham, 1867-1911,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jan 25, 2007

Editor's review

The Plum Tree is a novel by David Graham Phillips written in the early twentieth century, belonging to the tradition of social critique within American literary realism. Phillips was known in his day for "muckraking" novels exposing political corruption and the influence of commercial interests, and this book continues his concern with the tension between individual destiny and social structure. As a free electronic text from Project Gutenberg, its value lies first in accessibility: readers can read an American novel now in the public domain at no cost, and thereby observe the moral dilemmas and gender issues in American middle-class narrative after the Gilded Age. Readers should not expect intense plot excitement; it is better understood in the context of American naturalism and the Progressive movement, noting how the author handles the social pressures behind his characters' choices. For readers studying American literature course selections, the circulation of public-domain ebooks, or early twentieth-century popular fiction, this book offers a light but usable entry point.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Undergraduate students and teachers studying American realism or Progressive-era literature
Readers who need public-domain English texts for corpus analysis or translation practice
General literary enthusiasts interested in early twentieth-century American social novels
Ebook readers collecting Project Gutenberg public-domain titles

Not a good fit for

Contemporary genre-fiction readers expecting strong plots and fast pacing
Beginners who need detailed annotations, introductions, and background chronologies
Readers who read only Chinese translations and are not comfortable with the English original

Reading tips

First read the bibliographic information on the Project Gutenberg page to confirm the edition and language, then proceed to the text.
Read alongside background materials on the American Progressive movement to understand the novel's social critique.
If the English original is long, read it chapter by chapter and keep track of character relationships to avoid getting lost.
For classroom use, select key chapters for comparative discussion with contemporary "muckraking" journalism.

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.

FAQ

Is this book in Chinese or English?

According to the Project Gutenberg record, the book is in English and falls under American literature. Readers need English reading ability; the materials provided contain no information about a Chinese translation.

What does the author Phillips mainly write about?

The materials only identify the author as David Graham Phillips (1867–1911) without elaborating on his life. In public-domain common knowledge he is known for American realist and socially critical novels, but the specific content of this book must be based on the original text, and one should not over-infer beyond it.

Is the free electronic edition suitable for academic citation?

Project Gutenberg provides public-domain electronic texts suitable for general reading and teaching. For academic citation, it is advisable to check a print edition or an authoritative electronic edition and to note the source and edition information, rather than citing directly from a webpage text.

What if I can't get through the English original?

You can proceed chapter by chapter with dictionary tools, or first learn about the narrative style of early twentieth-century American fiction before returning to it. If your goal is to understand the plot rather than study the text, you may also look for a reliable Chinese translation for comparison, but these materials provide no information about translations.

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About the author

Phillips, David Graham, 1867-1911 Author

David Graham Phillips (1867–1911) was an American novelist. Twelve of his works are held in this collection, including Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise, The Plum Tree, The Second Generation, The Cost, The Price She Paid, The Grain of Dust, The Fortune Hunter and The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig. Public information about him is limited, and the details of his life are difficult to verify, but these works show that he used fiction to engage with social realities, often centering on wealth, class, marriage and the fate of women. His writing has a critical edge, with carefully developed plots and a realistic style that reflects the manners of his time and comments on its social problems. Susan Lenox in particular shows his sustained concern with the lives of women.