The Sunset Trail

Lewis, Alfred Henry, 1857-1914Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 507K words
Chapters: 51

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 Sunset Trail by Alfred Henry LewisAuthor: Lewis, Alfred Henry, 1857-1914,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Oct 30, 2012

Editor's review

The Sunset Trail is a Western work by the American writer Alfred Henry Lewis, classified under American and Canadian literature. Lewis knew Western life and folk narrative, and his writing often features colloquial dialogue and a gallery of frontier characters; this work presents, within an adventure framework, the everyday life of a Western town where law and violence intertwine. As a public-domain ebook, it suits readers interested in American Western literature and the frontier narrative tradition, and can also serve as a sample of American popular fiction around the turn of the twentieth century. Readers need not expect the tight structure of a modern novel; they may focus on the narrator's tone, the regional flavor of the dialogue, and the use of Western genre elements; for research, the work's imagination and representation of the frontier can be examined against its historical background.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in American Western literature and frontier narrative
Scholars and students of late-nineteenth-century American popular fiction
English readers who enjoy colloquial dialogue and ensemble characters

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting the fast-paced action of modern Western films
Beginners impatient with old-fashioned English dialogue and dialect

Reading tips

Learn the basic genre features of American Western literature before entering the text.
Note dialect and colloquial expressions in the dialogue, and excerpt them to sense the regional flavor.
Sort out character relationships and event threads chapter by chapter to avoid confusion in an ensemble narrative.

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 genre is this book?

It is a popular novel of the American West, with frontier adventure and ensemble characters. Its language and narrative manner bear the marks of American popular literature around the turn of the twentieth century, and differ from modern Western genre fiction in pace and technique.

Do I need historical background before reading?

Systematic preparation is not necessary, but some knowledge of American westward expansion, the frontier narrative tradition, and the publishing environment of popular literature at the time will make the character setup and plot patterns easier to understand. General readers can begin with the story itself; researchers should analyze it against historical background.

What is the reading experience of the electronic edition like?

This version is a Project Gutenberg public-domain electronic text, easy to search and copy, but usually without modern layout optimization, annotations, or an introduction. It is advisable to use reading software that adjusts font and line spacing, and to mark character and event threads yourself.

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About the author

Lewis, Alfred Henry, 1857-1914 Author

Alfred Henry Lewis (1857–1914) was an American writer, with 17 works held in this collection. He is best known for the "Wolfville" stories, including Wolfville, Wolfville Days, Wolfville Nights, and Faro Nell and Her Friends: Wolfville Stories, which use a Western small-town setting, colorful local speech, and lively dialogue to portray frontier life and everyday characters in a humorous, colloquial style. He also wrote works on city politics and lower-class life, such as The Apaches of New York and The Boss, and How He Came to Rule New York, as well as documentary-style texts like The Mormon Menace: The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite and historical figures such as An American Patrician, or The Story of Aaron Burr. His writing spans Western tales, urban sketches, and historical narrative, with vivid language and memorable characters. Public information on his life, nationality, and education is limited, so no speculation is offered here.