The Postmaster

Lincoln, Joseph Crosby, 1870-1944Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 382K words
Chapters: 39

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 Postmaster by Joseph Crosby LincolnAuthor: Lincoln, Joseph Crosby, 1870-1944,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Sep 19, 2011

Editor's review

The Postmaster is a novel by Joseph Crosby Lincoln, classified under American and Canadian literature and released as a free eBook by Project Gutenberg. Lincoln's works are mostly set in small coastal towns of New England, written in a gentle, humorous tone, and skilled at portraying the daily life and human relations of ordinary people. This book revolves around the identity and circumstances of a postmaster, through which readers can sense the rhythm, interpersonal relationships, and professional ethics of early twentieth-century American small-town society. For readers who wish to understand the tradition of American regional literature or who hope to use light English original texts for extensive reading, this book offers an accessible entry of moderate length and relatively plain language. The electronic edition is easy to search and carry, making it suitable as material for reading-through training in English originals. It should be noted that this is a public-domain eBook without a modern introduction or notes, so readers need to grasp the historical background and language habits on their own.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who want to practice extensive reading with English originals and prefer a gentle narrative pace
Readers interested in American small-town life and everyday human-interest subjects
Readers studying American and Canadian literature and paying attention to public-domain texts
People who wish to use free eBooks for fragmented reading

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer strong plots, fast pacing, or suspenseful conflict
Beginners who need detailed notes and introductions to enter English originals
Readers expecting the typesetting and textual scholarship quality of modern published editions

Reading tips

Read through one chapter first, noting names and identity relationships before continuing, to avoid confusing characters
Do not look up dialect or colloquial expressions word by word; grasp the intent of the dialogue first and review later
Use historical background materials on the New England region of the United States to understand details of life in the book
Read at a fixed number of pages per day, and after finishing, review the changes in the main characters' circumstances

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

What English level is this book suitable for?

The language of this book is generally plain, with narration centered on everyday dialogue and scene description. It is suitable for readers with intermediate English reading ability who can read full-length novels. If you seldom read English originals, it is advisable to try one or two chapters first to confirm that dialect and colloquial expressions do not pose too great an obstacle before deciding whether to read the whole book.

The electronic edition has no notes; what background should I supplement while reading?

This is a public-domain electronic text and usually contains no modern notes. Readers may inform themselves about the social structure, postal and commercial life, and other background of early twentieth-century American small towns, which helps in understanding the logic of the characters' behavior. When encountering place names or occupational titles, use dictionaries and map tools to assist reading.

Is this book suitable as English extensive reading material?

Yes. The book is of moderate length and its plot advances rather gently, making it suitable for training English reading stamina through extensive reading. It is recommended to aim at understanding character relationships and major events rather than reading sentence by sentence intensively; details that do not affect understanding may be skipped, and an overall review can be made after finishing.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Lincoln, Joseph Crosby, 1870-1944 Author

Joseph Crosby Lincoln (1870–1944) was an American author best known for his novels and short stories about life in the small coastal towns of New England. Public information about him is limited, so the details of his life are difficult to set out; yet the nineteen works held in this collection show that he wrote consistently about fishermen, sea captains and ordinary residents around Cape Cod, endowing his characters with strong local accents and a lively sense of humor. His representative works include Galusha the Magnificent, Kent Knowles: Quahaug, Cap'n Warren's Wards and Cape Cod Stories, titles that themselves convey a flavor of the sea and of village life. His easygoing, warm-hearted style, built on everyday incidents and conversation, places him in the tradition of early twentieth-century American regional fiction.