The Spinster

Hichens, Robert, 1864-1950Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.8

Word count: 23K words
Chapters: 3

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 Spinster by Robert HichensAuthor: Hichens, Robert, 1864-1950,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Nov 8, 2007

Editor's review

The Spinster is a novel by Robert Hichens exploring the situation of unmarried women, suitable as a literary sample for understanding British social gender attitudes from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century. Hichens writes with subtlety, skillfully presenting through everyday scenes and dialogue how social pressure shapes personal choices; readers can glimpse the complex emotional world and moral expectations behind the label of "spinster." The book is moderate in length, with English difficulty at the upper-intermediate to advanced level, suitable as supplementary reading for literature classes and for readers interested in late Victorian fiction and the study of female images to savor slowly in a quiet setting. Note that the novel carries the narrative pace and value judgments of its era; modern readers should read with a historicized eye, focusing on the characters' situations rather than simply endorsing the narrator's judgments. As a public-domain eBook, it is easy to search and cite, and suits book-club discussions on topics such as "singlehood," "family responsibility," and "female autonomy."

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literary readers interested in late Victorian to Edwardian British fiction
Students and teachers in the humanities studying changing images of women and social gender attitudes
Upper-intermediate and advanced English learners who wish to practice close reading with public-domain English originals
Book-club members willing to discuss marriage, singlehood, and family issues

Not a good fit for

Readers of popular fiction who prefer fast-paced plots and strong dramatic conflict
Learners at beginner English reading level who need extensive annotations
Readers expecting a systematic theoretical framework from contemporary gender studies

Reading tips

Read one chapter first, note the evaluative words the narrator uses for the heroine, then go back and analyze the narrator's stance.
Consult background materials on women's education and marriage in Britain at the time of the novel's publication.
Take reading notes on the question "Is singlehood a choice or a circumstance?", distinguishing textual evidence from personal impressions.
If the English is difficult, use a reliable translation to follow the plot, then return to the original to appreciate the language details.

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 novel suitable for English beginners?

Not really. Hichens's narrative language carries the style of its era, with fairly complex sentence structures and rather literary vocabulary. Readers with upper-intermediate or advanced English reading ability who can handle long sentences with a dictionary will find it smoother; beginners may lose the main thread amid detailed descriptions.

Do I need to know the author's other works before reading this book?

No. The book can be read independently and does not depend on the plots or characters of the author's other novels. To understand its background, a brief acquaintance with late nineteenth-century British fiction's attention to the issue of single women may help, but it is not a prerequisite for understanding the book.

Is this book suitable as material for a gender studies paper?

It can be used as a case of literary text, but not as a theoretical work. It offers a particular era's imagination of single women and narrative strategies, suitable for image analysis or discourse analysis; if a systematic theoretical framework is needed, other research works should be read separately.

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About the author

Hichens, Robert, 1864-1950 Author

Robert Hichens (1864–1950) was a British novelist, with 28 of his works held in this collection. Public information about him is limited, and details of his life are difficult to verify, but his writings offer a sense of his literary range. His best-known novel, The Garden of Allah, is set against an exotic desert landscape and blends romance with religious reflection; The Green Carnation became known for its thinly veiled portrayal of Oscar Wilde and the aestheticist circle around him. He also wrote novels such as The Woman with the Fan, The Dweller on the Threshold, Bella Donna, The Figure in the Mirage and The Call of the Blood, as well as a travel book on the Near East, The Near East: Dalmatia, Greece and Constantinople. His work often draws on foreign settings, social manners and psychological suspense, with carefully developed plots that combine popular readability with the tastes of their time, earning him a place in early twentieth-century British popular fiction.