The River Prophet

Spears, Raymond S. (Raymond Smiley), 1876-1950Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 384K 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 River Prophet by Raymond S. SpearsAuthor: Spears, Raymond S. (Raymond Smiley), 1876-1950,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: May 16, 2009

Editor's review

The River Prophet is a novel by Raymond S. Spears, classified under American and Canadian literature, now reissued as a free ebook through Project Gutenberg. Spears was active in the first half of the twentieth century, and his works often take the rivers, lakes, and wilderness life of North America as their setting, as this book does. For Chinese readers it is first of all a primary text for understanding early American popular fiction: its narrative pace, character arrangement, and depiction of the natural environment all bear the marks of its era. As a public-domain ebook, its value lies not in binding or marketing but in accessibility—readers can obtain an unexpurgated English original at no cost. It suits use as English reading material and casual browsing by those studying American regional literature, the history of popular fiction, or early ebook forms. Note that this is the English original from an early period; read it expecting both a document and a story, without judging its structure by contemporary novelistic standards.

Who it's for

A good fit for

English readers who want low-cost access to early American popular fiction
Researchers of American regional literature or early twentieth-century popular publishing
Learners who want to practice long-form reading with a public-domain English original
Readers interested in stories of rivers and wilderness life

Not a good fit for

Readers who only read Chinese translations and are uncomfortable with English originals
Genre fans expecting contemporary suspense or fast-paced narrative
Beginners who need introductions, annotations, or systematic literary background

Reading tips

Read the first two chapters to gauge pace and difficulty, then decide whether to read through or selectively.
Keep an electronic dictionary handy and note river- and wilderness-related vocabulary for language learning.
Read alongside contemporaneous American popular fiction and note period features of subject and style.
For research, check basic bibliographic information on the author and work before close reading.

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?

This is the English original, released as a free ebook by Project Gutenberg. The title is The River Prophet and the author is Raymond S. Spears. Chinese readers need some English reading ability; the available materials provide no information on a Chinese translation.

What is Project Gutenberg?

Project Gutenberg is the earliest project to offer free ebooks, founded by Michael Hart in 1971, and its memory continues to inspire the development of ebooks and related technologies. This book is released under that project as a freely available public-domain electronic text.

What background knowledge do I need to read this book?

No special background is required, but familiarity with common themes and styles of early twentieth-century American popular fiction helps. The book involves rivers and wilderness life; some interest in North American geography and nature writing will make the reading smoother.

Is this book suitable for learning English?

It can serve as long-form English reading material, but it is an early popular novel whose language and narrative habits differ from contemporary English reading materials. Try the opening first, assess the difficulty before deciding whether to read it through, and keep a dictionary to record new words.

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

Spears, Raymond S. (Raymond Smiley), 1876-1950 Author · American · 1876–1950

Raymond S. Spears (1876–1950) was an American author. Public information about him is limited, and the details of his life are little known, but it is clear that he was known for adventure and outdoor-themed popular fiction and wrote a large number of such works over his career. His representative work, The River Prophet, reflects this orientation, telling a story set around a river and the wilderness with a distinctly adventurous flavor. Writing for general readers, he emphasized plot momentum and the depiction of natural settings, earning a place in early twentieth-century American popular literature. Although systematic scholarly study of him and his work remains scant and only one of his books is held in the current catalog, it still offers a glimpse of his enduring interest in outdoor life and adventure narrative.