The Scouring of the White Horse Or, The Long Vacation Ramble of a London Clerk

Hughes, Thomas, 1822-1896Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.5
Word count
384K words
Chapters
39

Tags

English Originals Country RambleTravelogueAdventure JourneyComing of AgeSlow ReadingGrowing UpHumor ReliefHistorical LegendsFolk CustomsBritish Milieu

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 Scouring of the White Horse; Or, The Long Vacation Ramble of a London ClerkAuthor: Hughes, Thomas, 1822-1896,Language: English, Class: DA: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Great Britain, Ireland, Central Europe, Release Date: Oct 9, 2016

Editor's review

This is a work by Thomas Hughes (author of Tom Brown's School Days); its title may be rendered as The Scouring of the White Horse; Or, The Long Vacation Ramble of a London Clerk. It combines travel narrative with local history, centering on the white horse hill figure on the chalk hills of England and related folklore, and carries the unhurried tone and nostalgic air of Victorian prose. As a free eBook from Project Gutenberg, it suits readers interested in English local history, folklore and travel literature. There is no need to seek plot momentum in reading; it is better treated as a historical ramble: follow the narrator's steps and attend to the descriptions of rural scenery, festival traditions and ordinary people's lives. The English original has period language features, and patient reading conveys the flavor of nineteenth-century English prose.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Look up basic background on the white horse hill figure and the region before reading the main text for smoother progress.
  2. Proceed chapter by chapter and, after each chapter, note place names and folk customs to form a reading map.
  3. Do not cling to period expressions word by word; grasp the narrative thread first.
  4. Read alongside other works by Hughes to appreciate changes in his narrative style.

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

FAQ

Who is the author of this book? The author is Thomas Hughes (1822–1896), an English writer known for Tom Brown's School Days. This book is another of his works combining travel and local history, released as an eBook by Project Gutenberg.
What does “White Horse” in the title refer to? “White Horse” refers to the white horse hill figure on the chalk hills of England, a famous local historical landmark. The book narrates around the scouring activity and local traditions related to the white horse, and belongs to local history and folklore.
Is this book suitable as an introduction to English history? It is better suited as supplementary reading on local history and folklore than as an introduction to general history. The book focuses on a specific region and activity, and its narrative carries a Victorian prose style; readers should preferably have some background knowledge of English history.
What language level is needed to read this book? The book is in the English original and has nineteenth-century language habits and longer sentence structures. Intermediate or higher English reading ability is recommended, along with patience to adapt to the period style; otherwise, readers may first use guides or background materials for support.

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About the author

Hughes, Thomas, 1822-1896 Author

Thomas Hughes (1822–1896) was an English author whose biographical details remain limited in publicly available sources, and he is not widely introduced in the Chinese-speaking world. Eight of his works are held in this collection. He is best known for the two novels featuring the character Tom Brown, Tom Brown's School Days and Tom Brown at Oxford, as well as Tom Brown at Rugby. These works take school and youthful growth as their themes, with a realistic style and a moral concern, and they created classic literary images of English public school and university life that deeply influenced later school fiction. He also wrote The Scouring of the White Horse, Vacation Rambles, Memoir of a Brother, and True Manliness, covering travel sketches, local customs, and character formation, in plain prose that emphasizes moral education. Overall, Hughes's writing combines narrative with instruction and holds a distinctive place in nineteenth-century English popular literature.