The Voice

Deland, Margaret Wade Campbell, 1857-1945Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.4

Word count: 69K words
Chapters: 7

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 Voice by Margaret Wade Campbell DelandAuthor: Deland, Margaret Wade Campbell, 1857-1945,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Nov 1, 2000

Editor's review

The Voice is a novel by Margaret Wade Campbell Deland, one of the important American realist novelists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, whose work often explores women's circumstances and the conflicts between social ethics and religious feeling. The book is built around the image of the "voice," involving the tension between a character's inner conscience and external opinion, and continues the author's strengths in psychological portraiture and the depiction of social mores. This Project Gutenberg edition offers the original English text as a free eBook, suitable as reading material in English literature and for readers interested in American women's writing and the social novel. While reading, note how the author uses everyday scenes and dialogue to advance inner change, and the multiple symbolic meanings of the "voice" in the narrative. It should be noted that this is not a tightly plotted suspense novel; its value lies more in its finely drawn characters and nuanced treatment of moral questions.

Who it's for

A good fit for

English-language readers who enjoy late nineteenth-century American realist fiction
Literary scholars studying American women writers and women's writing
Intermediate to advanced English learners seeking to expand their reading through original English texts
General readers interested in themes of conscience, public opinion, and moral choice

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer fast-paced suspense or strongly plot-driven stories
Readers still at an elementary level of English who would struggle with a full-length original text
Beginners who need a study guide or Chinese annotations to understand the text

Reading tips

Read a chapter or two first to get a feel for the language and narrative pace, then decide whether to read closely or extensively.
Keep a brief character list, noting who appears and their social position.
Note the scenes in which the "voice" appears and compare how different characters understand it.
If the reading proves difficult, use an English dictionary and background material on the literature to support comprehension.

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 a Chinese edition?

No. This edition comes from Project Gutenberg and is an original English-language eBook; the text is in English, with no Chinese translation or annotations, so it is better suited to readers with some English reading ability.

Do I need to know the author's background before reading?

It is not essential, but knowing that Deland was active in American literary circles in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and that her work often concerns women and social ethics will help in understanding the book's thematic orientation. You can read the text first and then look up background on the author and her era.

Is this book suitable as English-learning material?

It can serve as extensive reading material for intermediate to advanced English learners, but because it was written relatively early, its sentence patterns and vocabulary carry the marks of its period. Reading with a dictionary is advisable; there is no need to look up every word—focus on following the characters and the main line of the plot.

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About the author

Deland, Margaret Wade Campbell, 1857-1945 Author

Margaret Wade Campbell Deland (1857–1945) was an American novelist. Public information about her life and education is limited, and she has received little attention in the Chinese-speaking world. The library holds eleven of her works, including Dr. Lavendar's People, The Rising Tide, The Iron Woman, The Voice, The Vehement Flame, An Old Chester Secret, The Wisdom of Fools and The Way to Peace, commonly classified under inspirational and personal growth. Her novels are mostly set in small-town and family life, using everyday moral conflicts to portray character. Her tone is gentle and morally engaged, and she is skilled at revealing ordinary people's inner struggles through delicate dialogue. Her works had some influence on American readers of her time.