The Village Notary: A Romance of Hungarian Life

Eötvös, József, báró, 1813-1871Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.8
Word count
992K words
Chapters
100

Tags

English Originals Social Fiction Country SocietyPolitical AllegoryPower GameComplex HumanitySocial CritiqueLocal NarrativeHungary19th Century

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 Village Notary: A Romance of Hungarian Life by báró József EötvösAuthor: Eötvös, József, báró, 1813-1871,Language: English, Class: PH: Language and Literatures: Finno-Ugrian and Basque languages and literatures, Release Date: Jan 2, 2011

Editor's review

This novel is one of the representative works of the nineteenth-century Hungarian writer Baron József Eötvös, presenting the power structure, social networks, and legal practice of rural Hungarian society through the grassroots office of the village notary. The novel wraps social observation in a romantic style, offering both the readability of plot development and the detailed texture of rural life at the time. For Chinese readers, its value lies more in its dual reference as literary and social history: it conveys the character of Eastern European Romantic narrative and, through the notary's perspective, illuminates nineteenth-century Hungarian local governance and class relations. The Project Gutenberg edition is an English public-domain e-book, suitable as extended reading for foreign literature courses or as supplementary material for comparative literature research. Readers need not seek dramatic plot but may note how the author uses everyday affairs to present the tension between institutions and human nature.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the preface or learn about nineteenth-century Hungarian rural background before entering the main text
  2. Proceed chapter by chapter and note the specific matters the notary handles to trace institutional threads
  3. Read the novel alongside European rural fiction of the same period to observe narrative differences
  4. If English reading is difficult, read a summary first, then read key passages chapter by chapter

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
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
  78. 78
  79. 79
  80. 80
  81. 81
  82. 82
  83. 83
  84. 84
  85. 85
  86. 86
  87. 87
  88. 88
  89. 89
  90. 90
  91. 91
  92. 92
  93. 93
  94. 94
  95. 95
  96. 96
  97. 97
  98. 98
  99. 99
  100. 100

FAQ

Is this book in English or Chinese? According to the materials, it is an English e-book published by Project Gutenberg, in English. Chinese readers need some English reading ability or should use Chinese background materials to assist comprehension.
Can I understand it without knowledge of Hungarian history? You can read it, but understanding will be reduced. The novel involves the office of the village notary and local social relations; it is advisable to learn the basics of nineteenth-century Hungarian rural governance before reading the main text for a smoother experience.
Is this book suitable as research material? It is suitable as supplementary text for research at the intersection of literature and social history. As a public-domain e-book, it is easy to obtain and cite, but research should still combine professional historical works and authoritative literary history materials.

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About the author

Eötvös, József, báró, 1813-1871 Author · Hungarian · 1813–1871

Baron József Eötvös (1813–1871) was a Hungarian writer and politician who served as Minister of Education. Public information about the details of his life is limited, and only one of his works is held in this collection. He wrote the novel The Village Notary: A Romance of Hungarian Life, a Romantic-era work set against the Hungarian countryside that uses the profession of the village notary to connect local life with stories of human relations. As a figure active in both politics and literature, he often showed concern for social realities in his writing, drawing his subjects from Hungarian native experience. Owing to limited sources, the full range of his work and his place in literary history remain to be further examined, yet this representative novel offers an entry point for readers and researchers into nineteenth-century Hungarian fiction.